steel strings
by soisforte
Summary: At first, Arthur just wanted to play the music that wouldn't leave him alone. Then he met Gilbert and Mathias. And they decided to get famous.
1. the boy with music in his soul

_1. the boy with music in his soul._

A boy walked the streets of Liverpool.

He was quite skinny for his age (the awkward transition where he wasn't a child but wasn't a teenager either), not too short and not too tall, with a mop of messy blond hair and very thick eyebrows. Over one shoulder he had slung a black school bag and he was wearing a green V-neck sweater over a white polo shirt.

His name was Arthur Kirkland. He was quite mature for his (barely) eleven years, and went to a primary school on the northwest side of the city.

He was a horribly lonely boy.

Arthur glanced up at the sky briefly. It was very cloudy, the sky consisting of patchy light and dark grays. Occasionally a bird, dark against the clouds, would flap its way across, cawing loudly. The city was slowly beginning to show signs of spring, from the little green shoots of grass that struggled under the weight of the still-slushy snow to the buds that began to form on the scarce trees overhead. Arthur jammed his little pink hands into the pockets of his trousers and sniffed. Even if spring was coming, it was still unusually cold, and the breeze kept throwing his blond hair into his face.

He had a very miserable look on his face. His brows were drawn and knit together, and a pout pulled the corners of his mouth down. Arthur didn't know much of life, but whatever he saw, he didn't like it. Not a bit.

He didn't really want to go home. School for him was fine. It was an escape from home. It was part of the reason why he walked home instead of taking the bus—he could painfully drag out going home to a course of more than half an hour, if he was lucky. If he could, he would stay at school all day. He wouldn't go home. He wouldn't have to go home. He could stay there all day and live his dull uninteresting life out doing maths and learning history and reading meaningless books that floated past his consciousness like a feather on the wind.

Deep thoughts for a eleven-year-old British schoolboy.

He walked on, and if he turned his head to the right, he could see the big brick building that made up the Beatles Story, the famous museum in Liverpool dedicated to one of the world's greatest rock bands.

A flood of bitterness rose in his throat. No one could ever be like the Beatles; there would never be a second great rock band as universal and as revolutionary as they would be. It was an impossible dream. Arthur would never be as great as they were.

_Arggh. _What was he thinking? He couldn't even play an instrument. Yes, he might've heard melodies in his head all the time, hollow notes of an odd quality with the clash of drums that could only be satisfied if he tapped his foot and hummed them, but it wasn't like he would be a musician. That would never happen. He should stop kidding himself, stop entertaining the sheer idea of even becoming a musician. Like he could even _try _to become like John Lennon. Bloody genius idea that was!

He kept walking. He almost didn't pay attention to where he was going anymore; his feet knew already. The pavement hit the soles of his shoes, and the breeze whipped his hair. He stopped to tie his shoes.

That was when he heard it.

A soft stream of notes, drifting in the air like drops of rain. They danced in the air around Arthur before fading into a draft of sea air.

Arthur breathed in deeply. By instinct he closed his eyes, and his ears hungrily drank in the sound of that soft plucking of guitar strings, its warm tone sending shivers down his spine. The music lifted him off his feet, the melody so sweet and longing that he felt something twinge in the small space behind his heart. Arthur would later look back on this day and not remember the exact song that was playing, but he would always remember it was absolutely brilliant.

Just absolutely brilliant.

He opened his eyes to see a man with amber eyes and golden smile looking at him. He had curly brown hair and was built stocky, with a lot of muscle. A line of stubble and dimples accompanied the smile. He was wearing only a worn leather jacket and a t-shirt, and in his hands was the most beautiful guitar Arthur had ever seen. It was smooth and shiny and black, with a rim of gold around the edge of the body. The steel strings on it vibrated with a warmth that went straight to Arthur's toes.

"Hello," the man with the golden eyes and beautiful onyx guitar said very gently and kindly. He had a London accent, which was almost rather jarring to Arthur's scousey ears. "How are you today?"

"Good," said Arthur very politely. "How are you?"

"I'm very good, now that I'm talking to you," said the man. "My name is Romulus."

"Odd name you have there," said Arthur, never one to soften his sharp remarks.

"Yeah?" The man chuckled. "Call me Roma, then; it's what my grandsons call me."

"I'd rather not call you anything," said Arthur. Roma laughed again.

"Then, kind sir, what is your name?" he asked, his big, rough hands stroking the guitar strings gently.

"Arthur Kirkland," the blond boy replied, the word escaping his lips before he could control himself.

"Well, Arthur Kirkland," Roma said. "It is very good to meet you."

"I should think otherwise."

Roma smiled, as if everything Arthur said was a joke. "Do you want to try my guitar?"

Arthur clenched his teeth. At that moment he realized that he wanted _so desperately_ to try Roma's guitar. He wanted to press his palms against the black lacquered body of the guitar, put his fingertips on the silvery strings and strum softly that melody that had danced in his head all day long. His feet had even begun pulling him towards the instrument like a magnet and iron filings. _Dear god._

But his head was already ahead of his heart, and his mouth obeyed his head.

Arthur swallowed and shook his head. "Sorry, no."

Roma cocked his head. "Are you sure about that?"

"Quite." And before Roma could say another word, Arthur promptly turned on his heel and forced himself to walk away.

And instead of walking on the concrete pavement he walked through a sticky sea of regret.

.

"I'm home," said Arthur. He opened the door to the very dusty Kirkland Apartment.

The lie echoed emptily across the room. Arthur gingerly stepped inside and slipped off his trainers.

He was greeted with the sight of a drunk, balding man snoring on a beat-up leather couch. A potbelly bulged out of his stained white wifebeater. The TV blared with something no child should have to see, and Arthur's insides writhed as he switched the screen off. A snort from the sleeping man made Arthur jump, and the blond boy glanced anxiously back to the sleeping man, who continued snoring.

Arthur breathed a small sigh of relief, and adjusted his school bag. He didn't want to have to deal with Uncle John, especially when—Arthur wrinkled his nose a little at this thought—when he was drunk. The scotch bottle sitting on the coffee table was only half-full, but empty cans of ale and six-pack plastic rings littered the dirty carpet. Alcohol hung thick in the air, and Arthur held his breath so he wouldn't have to smell it.

He shuffled on into the kitchen, where Erin and Liam, both sixteen years old, were sitting there, eating their way through a bag of crisps. Erin sniffed in disdain when she saw the younger Kirkland walk in, and flipped her reddish hair over her shoulder. Her green-blue eyes narrowed slightly.

Her twin brother Liam did the same, snobbishly brushing his own slightly red-blond hair out of his eyes—he'd had his fringe cut overly long in the front, like he was a skater or something. He dressed like it too: today he was wearing a checkered hoodie and high-top sneakers. His own blue eyes eyed Arthur patronizingly.

"What're you doing?" he demanded.

"Getting something to eat," said Arthur bluntly. He opened one of the cabinets and made a face at the empty jar of peanuts.

"Hurry up with it, then," said Erin. "Don't take the crisps, either."

"Well, if I can't take it, could you give me some then?" asked Arthur.

He was kicked very hard in the shin by Liam—he could tell it was Liam because of the very hard sneaker toe that made contact with his leg. It hurt like hell, and Arthur bit his lip to keep from crying.

"Cheeky little git," Erin muttered. "What did I _just _say?"

"Wanker," Liam coughed.

Arthur managed to get a box of biscuits before either of the Carrot-Head Twins (as he called them behind their backs) could say anything else. Hands shaking, he tightened his grip on his school bag and ran out, eyes squeezed tight. A bruise was already forming on his leg; he could feel it throbbing horribly. He wasn't sure why he was overreacting so much; his leg was fine. He knew that. He was used to Liam kicking him in that spot on a near-daily basis.

He was also used to his self-esteem being destroyed every day. Not that he had to like it.

Arthur felt a sudden wall of warm fabric slam into his face. Trembling, he looked up into another intimidating face, this time with the same blue-green eyes as Erin but with lighter hair and a splash of freckles on a pert nose.

"Shove off," said Rhys Kirkland sleepily, and Arthur nearly coughed, the smell of weed was so overpowering. Rhys had been smoking again; his words were slurred slightly and his eyes were half-closed.

"S-sorry," Arthur mumbled, and ducked to the side. Rhys wasn't usually one to box Arthur's ears as readily as the twins, but the youngest Kirkland could never be too sure. That jumpy feeling of paranoia never went away when Arthur was home.

Home. Even Arthur, at his tender age of eleven, knew how much of a joke that was.

He wished very much then that his mother was still alive somehow. His mother with a soothing embrace that made his heart jump, and green eyes and soft voice and warm hands and gentle laughed.

He missed Diana Kirkland with a pain so big and deep that it left a hole in his existence. Dear god.

Arthur walked into the room he shared with Ian and Rhys. It was empty, he noted with relief, and he quickly went to the bunk bed and climbed up onto the top, where he curled up under the covers and sighed. He'd felt so wound-up the whole day, since he really had no friends at school and kept to himself. He didn't like company. He'd gotten enough of hanging with people at home, and _that _experience left him bitter and cynical. No, there was no need to repeat that with other people.

Like Roma.

God. Why had he even said anything to the man in the first place? He'd felt quite ridiculous to begin with, and who was to say that this Roma man was trustworthy at all? For all Arthur knew the man could be a criminal or stalker or something like that. And god knows the young Brit had been surrounded in that enough. Erin and Liam, came back to the apartment late after "studying with friends" but he knew that they were really out shoplifting and drinking. They'd always come back with stuff that wasn't there before, the smell of gin heavy around them. Rhys smoked all sorts of things; Arthur had just the other day found a plastic bag filled with packets of white powder and things that looked like candy tablets and stickers. Arthur didn't dare taste any; sight of those always made his stomach churn. It was like his gut was telling him they were drugs.

Arthur yawned. It was barely five o'clock and he was almost asleep.

The door banged open.

"Artie boy, I know you're there," called out a familiar obnoxious voice.

"Go away, leave me alone, please," Arthur whispered to himself. It was his mantra of comfort, but it never seemed to work, and instead he curled his fist in the pillow and braced himself.

"Tch, don't be a rude boy, Artie," said Ian Kirkland, and a thick maths book thumped painfully on Arthur's foot.

"Owww!" Arthur groaned. "Stop it!"

"_Owww! Stop it!_" Ian whined mockingly. "Come down from there, already!" He whacked another textbook on Arthur's side.

The youngest Kirkland brother cried out in pain, and squirmed up on his bed. Tears formed in his eyes as the textbook assault continued, and he bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood.

"Go away!" Arthur said thickly, struggling to contain the emotions swelling inside him.

"Awwwh, is Awtiekins gonna cry?" Ian said in a fake baby-voice. "You're a big bwoy now, Awtie! Big bwoys, don't cwy!"

That only spurred on more tears. Arthur could feel them threatening to spill out onto his face. The attempts he made to stop them were feeble and useless and he sniffed involuntarily.

"C'mon—Awtie—stop—cwying!" The auburn-haired older boy punctuated his words with a pencil stabbed into Arthur's leg, sending bolts of pain shooting up his skin.

Arthur bit his lip. Even if he was eleven years old, he was still as sensitive and vulnerable as a small child, and he just wanted the pain to stop, for that leaden feeling in his chest to go away, for Ian to go away.

But even then, through all his suffering, he'd learned to suffer in silence.

And so he said nothing.

.

Later in the night, when Ian and Rhys had both gone to sleep, Arthur slipped out of bed and into the adjoining bathroom. He flipped the lights on, splashed cold water onto his face, and looked in the mirror.

A pale, weary boy looked back at him. A fringe of blond hair fell choppily over his forehead, darkened with sweat and tears. Green eyes the color of the spring grass that poked through the cracks of the sidewalk blinked back at him, heavy with exhaustion under his thick, dark eyebrows. His lips were stained a cherry color, thanks to the blood that had come from biting them so much. His nose and eyes were red from crying. A bruise he hadn't noticed before was forming on the side of his face. It was grotesquely shiny and purple, and he gingerly pressed two fingers to the spot and winced at the pain.

Arthur sighed and rubbed his eyes. He opened his school bag, glanced briefly at the maths homework, and rubbed his eyes again. The ink-black numbers swam before his eyes and he ground his teeth in frustration. _Of course I have to put off maths homework to before bed._

Then he realized the next day was Saturday, and he wouldn't have school the next day. No point in doing his school-work then, which was nice. Even if schoolwork for him was ridiculously easy and took extremely little time and effort. But he still had to deal with his siblings. Not as nice. Downright horrible, actually.

_It's not your fault you ended up here, _Arthur told himself.

The saying never worked. He had the scars to prove it.

.

The next day Arthur woke up late to find Ian gone—probably running around the streets with his friends—and Rhys quietly smoking a bong in his bed. Arthur was pretty sure that was a fire hazard, but Rhys hadn't set his sheets on fire yet, not even in his chemically-induced haze.

Even still, Arthur was cautious as he climbed out of bed, sneaking past Rhys and into the kitchen. Erin and Liam weren't there. Arthur suspected from this and the sound of snores coming from the other room that they were still asleep. The same went with Uncle John. That was good. Arthur rather liked them that way—asleep. He took the opportunity to make himself breakfast tea and toast with strawberry jam and butter, and ate up. He was the only one who still did grocery shopping around in the household. Erin and Liam were always off working to get money for it and didn't care to do much else; Rhys was always high; Ian was always "busy." Food was a luxury, and they hardly ever ate a proper dinner together anymore.

Arthur didn't mind that so much, actually. He hated his family.

At one o'clock the Carrothead Twins began to stir. Arthur quickly rinsed his plate and stuck it in the dishwasher to properly wash later. He pulled on his green fleece jacket and a pair of jeans. Then he went out for a walk on the streets of Liverpool.

The city never failed to comfort him. The skyline alternated with steel and glass structures with tall buildings of red and gray brick. There always construction going on; even as Arthur walked through the city by himself, a steel parapet constructed of thin dull-silver pipes loomed above him. If he looked up, he was sure to see a crane swiveling around, carrying large loads of rock and concrete and Arthur didn't (quite honestly) care what else.

Even though that day was quite gray and cloudy and hung with the scent of rain, Arthur breathed in deeply and looked up, watching the birds flap their way overhead. The cool wind wrapped him in a close, familiar embrace. The feeling of the concrete under his feet, the distant smell of the sea and smoke—all of it spoke home. He closed his eyes, drinking it in, and promptly ran into a wall of gray fleece.

"Arthur Kirkland, is it!" boomed a familiar voice, and Arthur groaned inwardly.

"Good day to you," he said hurriedly, and made to leave. He didn't want to talk to Roma again. He didn't want to see that beautiful guitar. And he didn't want to hear the song inside of him.

"Hey, hey, hey, wait!" A strong hand gripped Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur turned around to look into Roma's concerned golden eyes. "You look awfully thin. Have you enough to eat at home?"

"That's not any of your business," said Arthur defensively. Maybe too defensively.

"Now it is," Roma said, and took his hand. "Don't tell me you have the idiocy to refuse free food."

Arthur didn't. He was just weary and tired and didn't want to deal with Roma. He was about to say so when his stomach growled, surprising them both. _So the toast wasn't enough, was it? _Arthur thought a little sadly.

"Come on." Roma smiled. "If that isn't a yes, then I don't know what that is."

And he pulled Arthur by the hand through the streets until they came to a large stone building with lots of windows.

"Good day," Rome said to the doorman, who smiled back at Rome and replied some other pleasantry.

They climbed up three stories of stairs—something like the elevator was broken—and came to a blue door with an oddly colored doormat. It was divided into three big stripes—green, white and red. Arthur made a face while Rome fumbled with the keys for a minute before opening the door.

"_Nonno!_" cried a high voice, and a copper-headed missile came shooting out of nowhere, barreling into Roma's arms.

"Feliciano!" said Roma, laughing, and kissed the little Italian child. Arthur felt a twinge of jealousy seeing the display of affection between grandfather and child, and turned away.

"_Nonno,_" another voice piped up, and Arthur looked up to see another boy closer to his age, with darker hair. "What are you doing back so early? You _told_ us you'd be back at five."

"Ah, Lovino," Roma said. "Well, you see, I ran into a friend of mine."

"Sorry? A friend?" the dark-haired boy, his glowering eyes almost exactly like Roma's, save for the expression.

"This here is Arthur Kirkland," Roma said, patting the blond boy on the back. "A friend."

"Veh!" Nice to meet you!" chirped Feliciano, his brown smiling eyes nearly closed since his smile was so huge.

Arthur nodded.

Lovino muttered something that sounded like "eyebrow bastard" and turned away, bounding across the smooth wooden floors of the apartment and out of sight.

"Language, Lovino," Roma called, and headed for the kitchen.

It was the oddest family that Arthur had ever met. Roma and his two grandsons, Feliciano and Lovino. They had a chaotic, bustling atmosphere to their home, even with just the three of them. It made Arthur hurt inside, seeing their cheerful antics. He felt like an outsider looking in on a painfully happy, beautiful, loving environment.

How he wished that his own family was like the Vargases.

.

Arthur had never had Italian food, before, and he had to grudgingly admit, it was a long way from the usual meals at the Kirkland residence, which consisted of crisps, Pop-tarts, and generally unhealthy, cheap foods.

But Roma had cooked the meal himself, appointing Feliciano and Lovino to run around and be his little assistants, and it wasn't long before they set down a large pan of lasagna on the table, dripping with cheese and sauce and sausages and other bits and pieces. Along with it went a plate of pasta with tomato sauce on top and…what looked like a bottle of wine.

Arthur knit his eyebrows as Roma brought out the bottle. "Alcohol? For kids?"

Roma threw his head back and laughed. "This is sparkling grape juice, Arthur! Are you mad?"

Arthur suddenly felt very awkward. And the awkwardness wasn't helped by the warm family atmosphere, with Feliciano and Roma laughing merrily between bites (about what, Arthur didn't quite know; he wasn't following the conversation too closely) and Lovino grumbling on and on about his idiotic family. Arthur bit his lip a little bit at these comments, and tried not to say anything stingy back.

Feliciano said something suddenly in Italian. Arthur raised a thick eyebrow as Roma wagged his finger.

"No Italian, Feli," he said teasingly, with a hint of sternness. "We have a guest here."

The little Italian's eyes looked back at Arthur's. "Oh! I'm sorry!" he said, his face falling slightly.

Arthur shrugged, and helped himself to another big piece of lasagna. It really was good lasagna, with the sauce spilling out in his mouth, sticky and gooey with melted cheese and pasta. God, it'd been forever since he'd any good food at all. Since his mum had died.

His throat lumped suddenly, and he choked on his mouthful of lasagna, causing the three Vargases to look up at him. They seemed to blur in his vision, and his eyes tickled, a sure sign that he was going to start crying. The earth tilted and he gripped the table to regain some form of support.

With effort, he swallowed the cheese and noodles and nodded, blinking back tears. "I'm fine," he said to the three Vargases that were looking at him with concerned looks on their faces (well, two Vargases—Lovino was stabbing angrily at his pasta like he hated Roma's made-from-scratch tomato sauce or something). "I'm fine, no worries."

Roma put his fork down, his golden eyes hard to read. "Are you all right, Arthur?"

"_Yes,_" Arthur said, with a trace of annoyance in his voice. "I'm completely _fine._"

There was an awkward, tense moment where Arthur could feel Roma's gaze on him, and Arthur tried to focus on swirling his fork in the pasta and lifting it to his mouth. He got that very conscious feeling of appearance, and he was aware of the way he was sitting, where his hands were, the way he opened his mouth to eat—_god, how frightfully awkward._

"Are you sure?" Roma's annoying voice again.

"_Yes,_" Arthur said for the final time.

There was a heartbeat of silence.

"I think," Roma said, "I want to show you something."

Arthur swallowed his mouthful of food. "You _think _you'll show me something?"

"I'm sorry," Roma said with a straight face. "I will show you something. Come."

He stood up and walked out of the dining room.

And Arthur, confused but oddly willing to trust this stranger—this stranger he'd met on the street with a London accent and guitar of pure magic and warm, loving family so beautiful it hurt—followed. His feet led him to the room where Roma stood, an empty bedroom painted green, occupied only with a piano and a guitar on a stand.

Arthur was certain that the floor was moving under his feet; he felt it tilt sideways and carry him to the guitar. It was smooth and cool under his hands, the golden body reflecting the white light from the window, the steel strings glinting vaguely and waiting to be strummed.

He barely heard Roma's encouragingly whispered "Go on, give it a go" and knelt down so he was closer to eye level with the instrument. It was beautiful, and Arthur carefully, _carefully_ put his hands over the fret board, those beautiful strings. Oh god.

"Atta boy," Roma said. "Go on, pick it up."

Arthur took a deep breath and picked the guitar up and held it exactly the way he'd seen Roma hold it, with his right arm hugging the body and his left arm under and around the fingerboard. It was one of the most natural thing he'd ever done, like breathing or talking or being sarcastically British. His fingers clutched the strings, and his other hand passed over the sound hole, creating an soft murmur of steel.

"Very good, very good," said a comforting voice behind him, and Arthur felt Roma come behind him, warm and reassuring. His very large tanned hands covered Arthur's and Arthur was slightly squished by Roma's very big muscular body. He could feel himself flushing slightly (Arthur, that was); it wasn't something he was used to, being embraced from behind by a total stranger, let alone anyone he'd really known, save for his mother. But Roma was big and warm and Arthur got the feeling of security. Safety. He was protected by this man he hardly knew, and he would be lying if he said he didn't liked it.

"Yes… put your fingers here"—Roma gently nudged Arthur's fingers into place on the strings—"and then like this." His other hand put a pick in between Arthur's fingers, and by instinct the hand swung down again, strumming a beautiful chord that hummed in his bones.

He didn't quite know why he did what he did next.

Something inside him just sort of… cracked. And the tears that Arthur had been holding back for five years since his mother's death came tumbling out of his eyes.

It was horrid. That was most likely why Arthur had held them back for so long; he hadn't wanted to deal with the horrible squeezing sensation in his chest, that sensation that left him practically unable to breathe. He hadn't wanted to make the horrid look on his face that he always got when he cried, with his eyes all scrunched up and his lips pulled back in what would have been a smile if he'd been happy.

Horrid.

Arthur felt like a mess, blubbering like a child (which he technically still was), getting tears and phlegm all over, on the guitar, on his clothes and on Roma's sleeves. But even with all of this, Roma still gently lifted the guitar over his shoulders, put it back on the stand, and wrapped his arms around Arthur, rocking and rubbing his hands up and down in a soothing motion.

And wrapped up in that safe embrace, Arthur cried five years' worth of tears.

It took the longest time for him to stop. After all, he had been bottling these up for five years.

Roma looked down at the blond British boy. "How are you?" he asked very quietly.

Arthur sniffed and buried his face into Roma's shirt. "I can hear it," he said, muffled.

"Sorry?"

"I can hear it," Arthur repeated. He looked up into Roma's eyes.

"What do you mean?" asked Roma, but he already sort of looked like he knew the answer already; his lips were teased upwards into a slight smile.

Arthur gave a small grunt of annoyance. "You know what I mean!" he insisted.

"_I can finally hear the music!"_

* * *

><p><strong>author's note~<strong>

First off, thank you for reading and for bearing with the 4000+ word chapter (that I rewrote like, five times)! ^_^;

This was sort of an idea that I had bouncing in my head for the longest while. It started out as a very undeveloped drabble centered around Arthur and the two other guys who make up _fubin san kyodai_, or in English, the Three Pitiful Brothers. (If you know who they are, I LOVE YOU FOR ALL ETERNITY SDFLKSDJF SD; if you don't know who they are, then you will find out shortly. XD) Over time it just kept writing itself and eventually turned into this. Good times.

I'll shut up about the development of this story now, hahahaha.

* **Liverpool**, if you haven't guessed already is where the all four of the members of the Beatles came from. There's even a museum there called _The Beatles Story _that you can go to. If you want. (Coincidentally, I did not know this until _after_ I picked this city for Arthur to live in. Oohhhhh.)

* **Scouse** (as in "Arthur's scousey ears") is a term used to describe people from Liverpool and also the unique accent of English that they speak with. It's _very _different from the accent spoken in London, which is why Arthur was sort of unused to it when he first started talking to Roma (who has a London accent).

* **fringe** are bangs. (British people think it's funny when you call bangs "bangs." Whatever.)  
>* <strong>ale <strong>is beer. **crisps **are chips. **biscuits **are cookies. **trainers **are like tennis shoes. Or sneakers.  
>* <em><strong>nonno <strong>_is Italian for grandfather. :)

_**Thank you for reading this story and please look forward to more chapters! :D**_

_**p.p.s. **_to be honest, I was a little apprehensive about putting this on , especially since there are no definite pairings in this story yet, and I happen to support (I suppose) the minority of England pairings, FrUK. But hopefully you guys will like this story as much as I do. :)__


	2. an attitude with sheer talent

_2. an attitude with sheer talent._

Arthur rapped his knuckles on the blue door of the flat. "It's me," he said very loudly, so that the people on the other side of the door would hear him.

"Door's unlocked," came the answer.

Arthur let himself inside the spacious home of Roma Vargas. The wooden floors were as pristine as they usually were, polished and shiny, and looking around, Arthur could see that Roma had hung yet another painting of an Italian vineyard on the cream-colored walls. He slipped off his trainers and breathed in the smells of tomato sauce and melting mozzarella that always hung around in the flat. A fancy stereo system was wired through the flat, and it was currently blasting an upbeat electro-rock song. Arthur bobbed his head along to the beat. "Who's this?"

Roma shuffle out of the kitchen, holding two steaming pastel-colored mugs. He was looking down with a very nervous look on his face, like he was afraid of them slipping out of his hands and shattering on the floor. "Hold on, hold on, hold on…"

He set one of them down with relief, and handed the other to Arthur, who accepted it gratefully and took a long swig. Roma always made Earl Gray for him when he visited.

"They're American," said Roma, crashing down on the soft black-leather couch. "They're called The Strokes; I think you've heard of them."

"I have," Arthur said. "But I haven't heard this song."

"It's new," Roma said. He closed his eyes and exhaled. "I'm just completely obsessed with it! I can't seem to stop listening to it!"

"Me neither!" Feliciano piped up, laughing, and he skipped out of the kitchen and into his room with a bowl of gelato in his hand.

Arthur scoffed good-naturedly at the weirdness of the Vargases and sat down on the couch also. No matter how hard he tried, a small grin worked its way across his face as he dropped his schoolbag at his feet. Surely Roma had more sense not to swoon over a song like a fangirl and a Japanese comic book, but he supposed the man was as emotionally mature as his youngest grandson.

"So what are we going to do today?" he asked the Italian native, who had closed his eyes and was tapping his foot to the song. "Are we going to work more with bass? Because I think I've got a better feel for it now—"

"Arthur," Roma said with a sudden seriousness to his voice that Arthur wasn't used to. "Be quiet for a moment."

The blond boy looked up, surprised. Roma breathed in and exhaled.

"I know."

Arthur's unusually thick eyebrows crinkled together in confusion. "What? I don't follow, sorry."

"South Premier Queen's Residential Academy. I know that you applied and got in."

Arthur swallowed uneasily, and tried to laugh—it came out very bitterly and very forced-sounding. "What—that's rubbish, that is—"

"Don't lie to me, Arthur. You've walked through that door nearly every single day for the past three years; I think I know well damn enough to know when you're lying." Roma adjusted the cross necklace around his neck. "And you're lying right now."

"I—no, what—"

"_What_, Arthur? What?"

"…I didn't—It wasn't supposed to…" Arthur yanked his hair, which was quite painful seeing how his hair was quite short. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

And he really was sorry. The guilt had formed a little hard stone in the pit of his stomach. His eyes were cast downward, towards his black socks, studying the way his toes curled like a little boy's. He didn't dare look up into Roma's golden gaze, into the frown of disappointment on his face. Roma was the last person in the world he wanted to let down.

There was a heartbeat of silence, before Arthur heard Roma shift in his seat. "When were you going to tell me?" the Italian man asked quietly.

"I—I didn't know you knew," stammered Arthur after a moment's hesitation.

"Nothing gets past my Lovi," said Roma with a touch of affection at the mention of his grandson. "Isn't that right?" he added at the teenager with dark hair who had just come in and was pulling his shoes off at the doorway.

"Shut up," Lovino growled, and he disappeared into his room.

"How?" Arthur tentatively looked at Roma, and found the Italian's eyes closed with only a trace of a smile on his face.

"He's in your form, if you've forgotten so quickly." Roma shrugged.

Arthur looked down into his cup of tea again.

"Fourth year," Roma said with an odd inflection of voice. "Changing schools in the middle of your secondary education."

Maybe Roma wasn't intending to do this, but Arthur felt very awkward. Roma was someone he usually opened up to easily, but now… now, it felt like Roma was a complete stranger. Like when they'd first met on the streets of Liverpool.

"Why?" asked Roma when Arthur remained silent, and Arthur felt compelled to answer. With difficulty, he opened his mouth and moved the leaden muscle in his mouth.

"I just… I didn't think I could take it anymore… the people at school and John and Ian—" Arthur cut off; his throat had closed up suddenly and pressure had unexpectedly built up in his chest. "I just… I had to get out," he burst out finally, and so did the tears in his eyes. He cursed them. He wasn't sure what his problem was, crying all the bloody time in front of the one person he most admired and looked up to, _blubbing_ and making a mess like he was just a child—

He was caught in a crushing hug. The fabric pressed up against his nose smelled like cologne and lasagna and the musty scent of guitar wood.

"Arthur. It's okay," said Roma softly. "I believe in you."

Arthur opened his eyes a little wider as the tears kept flowing. Roma kept talking.

"Arthur, I know you. I know you have suffered. You've suffered and fought and struggled; you've held the burden of raising yourself for the longest time after you lost your mother; you've tried so many times and failed so many times. Your own family has pushed you down and kicked you around and held you back and molded you into a bitter and contemptuous person. For the longest time you have lived on your own, without anything to anchor you to the world.

"But you found your way. You found your gift, your God-given gift. You found the music inside you.

"The last three years I've taken you in and taught you guitar and bass and piano and shown you music in all its genres—not just rock, but pop and hip-hop and classical and jazz and dance and techno. I've seen you absorb everything and take it into yourself. I've seen you grow and mature and develop. I've seen you get loads better at everything, I've listened to your compositions, I've fed you good Italian food"—here Arthur couldn't resist a little bit of a smile; the food really was good—"and I've heard you develop the sound of Arthur Kirkland.

"And I want you to know this.

"I love you so much. I love you as much as I love either Lovino or Feliciano. And I _know, _that you, Arthur James Henry Kirkland, are destined for great things. _You _are going to one day make your mark on the world, wherever you go, whatever you are going to do." Roma smiled at him gently. "I believe in you."

Arthur said nothing; the amount of emotion inside of him was too great to be put into words.

"Now come on," said Roma kindly, some of the spark coming back into his golden eyes. "I have something to give to you."

With a nudge, Arthur was coaxed up out of the couch, and into the bare bedroom with the piano and guitar in it, the room he'd walked into so many times for the last three years. But there was something different about the room (and it wasn't the fact that the walls had been repainted a pale sky blue).

In the middle there were three cases, all guitar-shaped, all slim hard cases of high quality and texture on the outside. Bronze clasps ran around the sides of the cases. The long one was colored a dark blue like the Irish Sea. The smallest of the three was a sort of maroon color, and the last, biggest case was black. Arthur trembled to think about what could possibly in them. Knowing Roma, probably something good.

Roma opened them, and Arthur felt his jaw drop.

In the black case lay a lovingly used acoustic guitar, the same one that Arthur had seen the first day he'd met Roma on the street—black with a golden rim. The red one held an electric guitar that was black, like the acoustic guitar, but it had a golden pattern of swirls and dots and thorns that crawled across the surface. The long blue case had a red bass that faded to a golden yellow near the bridge.

"My babies," Roma said fondly, his amber eyes glistening with nostalgia. He picked up the bass, studying the grain of wood streaking across its body. "And I'm giving them to you."

Arthur shook his head. "What? No, no… I can't take these."

"You should," said Roma emphatically. "And you're going to. I have no use for them anymore; I've other guitars to use." He tapped the strings and they echoed faintly and metallically in the spacious room. "They should be in good condition. Well, the strings can be replaced, maybe, since they look awfully worn, but that should be fine."

"But… they're yours!" Arthur protested. "I couldn't possibly—no!"

"Yes, you can." Roma put his hands on Arthur's shoulders. "Take them. Make a name for yourself. SPQR won't know what hit them."

"SPQR Academy," Arthur corrected, in a daze.

"It doesn't matter," Roma said, his amber eyes boring into Arthur's own green eyes. "I believe in you."

Arthur's heart jumped, and suddenly it was Roma wrapped in a crushing hug, with just two words to accompany it.

"Thank you."

.

"Sir?" Someone's hand shook Arthur's shoulder very hard. "Sir? Are you awake?"

Arthur grumpily pried his eyes open and squinted up into the concerned face of the train guard. It was annoyingly bright and hard to see, the sun streamed brightly through the windows of the compartment.

"Sir, we've arrived at Kings' Cross," said the driver. "Is this your stop?"

_Bloody hell. _He'd fallen asleep on the train. How long had the ride even been? A couple hours?

"Yes, sorry," he said hurriedly at the scrunched-up frown of the guard. "I'm getting up right now."

And he stood up so fast that his head started spinning and he nearly fell over.

"Careful, please," said the man, and Arthur shook his head swiftly. He picked up his rucksack and his three guitars and stumbled out of the compartment, still drunk with sleep.

"Your trunk, sir," said the man, holding it out to him, and Arthur groaned. He didn't want to carry another goddamn load. He angrily took the trunk and slung his guitars over his shoulder. With heavy, leaden feet he trudged out onto the platform of crowded people, not even bothering to look at the sign that read "Platform 9 3/4" and the fake trolley stuck in the wall under it. To be bloody honest, he didn't care. He was too tired to really care.

He flagged down a taxi, and after about twenty minutes, it pulled into a campus full of teenagers milling around, weighed down by trunks and bags and the like. Looking out the window, Arthur could feel a flood of bitterness in his throat; the kids had already sectioned off into groups. Great. He was never going to fit in here.

He wished suddenly that Roma was here with him, with his loud Italian laugh and his oddly childish eagerness and twinkling amber eyes, but he wasn't. He would have come if London hadn't been so bloody far away and if Feliciano and Lovino had been any less of a handful. And Arthur could take care of himself. That's what Roma had said, anyway.

Sighing, Arthur paid the driver and got out of the car. Then he dragged himself all the way to Eckland Residential Hall (or so the sign proclaimed), up the stairs to room 218, and flung open the door.

He was so tired he didn't have the slightest clue where he was going and when his foot hit something very hard and painful, he almost sat back and watched his world flip upside-down… that is, until his face rammed down violently onto the hard floor. His nose squashed down uncomfortably and he felt something wet and viscous clog it up.

He lifted his head and saw red liquid forming a very tiny puddle on the hardwood. _So that's what that was._

A snort behind him sounded from the doorway, and Arthur turned around to see a pale, slim boy standing there. He was rather tall, with a cocky expression on his whitish face and eyes like the drops of blood bleeding from Arthur's nose—dark red. He'd thrown on a red jacket over a white button-down, both of which were left open to display a black shirt with something written on it in grungy letters. One hand was brushing white-blond hair off his forehead, and the other was jammed in the pocket of his dark jeans.

Arthur hated him immediately.

"Shut it," he said rather crossly, narrowing his green eyes at the boy, and gingerly pressed his nostrils together.

"Sorry, couldn't really resist," said the other boy, not apologetic at all. Arthur widened his eyes slightly in shock; the boy had a scouser accent like he did. _The guy couldn't be from Liverpool, could he? He looks like a git. He _is _a git._

There was a very tense silence where neither of them said anything, but glared judgmentally at each other. Arthur saw the other boy's reddish-violet eyes surveying Arthur with distaste.

Arthur looked down at his clothing, which consisted of black skinny jeans, a dark faded Beatles T-shirt that Roma had given him (Roma had pretty much given him everything that was really worth owning) and a purple hoodie jacket with green paint splatters artfully splashed all over. Arthur was suddenly very aware that he had multiple steel studs pierced in his ears and in his face (two on each lobe and one in the top part of his left ear, along with a ring around his lip, to be precise). He was also aware of the dyed red hair that swept over his forehead; a sort of rebellious act to annoy his ungrateful siblings, who had more ginger hair. Lastly, he was aware of the somewhat-scary effect this had on people who saw him.

The other boy only sniffed, and looked disdainfully at Arthur. "Gilbert Beilschmidt," he said loftily. "You?"

"Why would you care?" Arthur asked with a nasty edge of tone. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn't like he was about to reveal that. He stood up and shrugged off his rucksack.

"I care," Gilbert began, "because I'm going to be your roommate."

That made more sense. Arthur had seen that name on the list of room assignments down in the lobby. Arthur sniffed. This was certainly going to be a fun year. He very much already wanted to throw something at Gilbert's head.

It was a beautiful start to a long and beautiful friendship.

.

The bell chimed on the warm autumn day. The British boy strode across the grassy fields of the school with purpose.

It was four o'clock, time for tea. Oddly enough, though, Arthur wasn't really in the mood for tea. He'd already drunk enough Earl Grey to probably keep him up for a week straight, and he wasn't exactly in the mood for sandwiches. Even if he'd discovered that in the month he'd been at SPQR that the food was downright delicious. Especially the scones. He wasn't sure why people avoided them like the plague, but he'd already managed to sneak a couple at breakfast and wasn't in the mood for any more.

He felt like going to his dormitory. So he was going to his dormitory.

He climbed up the stairs, feeling very mature in his school blazer and nice trousers and everything. What a crazy, deluded fool he was. A very nicely dressed fool with a bag full of books.

He opened the door.

"—and so ze value of x would be ze same as ze value here because—"

"What," Arthur interrupted, his voice tense with annoyance. "What is going on?"

Three pairs of eyes looked up. The first of which was reddish purple, the second green like unripe grapes, the third blue as a clear, cloudless sky.

"Oh, well," Gilbert said, with a smirk and a little flip with his short whitish hair, "I decided to invite Francis and Antonio over for a cram session; I hope you don't mind."

Two teenage boys sitting on the floor waved to Arthur. The first person, the boy with green eyes, grinned cheerfully and hugged his knees to his chest. He had tanned skin and brown hair that was tousled and messy. _Like Roma's._

Arthur inhaled, exhaled and eyed the other boy dubiously, who had shoulder-length blond hair and a handsome, broad face. The sleepy smile on his face sent a prickle of distaste through Arthur's spine and he could catch a whiff on some kind of expensive cologne. _God, the frogginess is just _dripping_off of him._

"Hey…" Arthur narrowed his eyes at Francis. "Are you… French?"

Francis looked taken aback slightly. "Um… yes… Yes, I'm French."

Arthur's skin seemed to crawl, and he shrank away from the French boy, nearly tripping over a stray textbook. "Get out!" he yelled in disgust, his green eyes squinted up in annoyance.

"I—sorry?" Francis said weakly, hurt showing on his face.

"Get! Out!" Arthur snapped. "Get out! Get out, get out, get out!"

"_Desolée—_I mean, I'm sor—"

"_Shut. Your. Trap_." Gilbert said, his red eyes flashing. "This is _my _room and Francis is _my _friend. You will not treat him like this."

"Who died and made you King of England?" sniped Arthur, matching the loathing in Gilbert's voice. "This is my bloody room, too. You could at least tell me when you bring in your froggy friends in my—"

"I'm sorry!" Francis managed to burst out, concern in his pale eyes, but Gilbert stepped forward to come nose-to-nose to Arthur.

"Don't. Call him. A frog," Gilbert said, with deadly intent. "Don't fucking call him a frog. Don't call him anything."

"Who are you to tell me anything?" Arthur said, matching Gilbert's tone. He was practically shaking with fury.

"Because I," began Gilbert, "am awesome. And you"—he cocked his head—"are not."

The rage was bubbling over now; Arthur could feel it boiling and spilling over in his gut. He couldn't believe the fucking nerve of this guy! To act like he was the boss with the simple, _lame_ excuse that he was _awesome? _"Don't," he said, his voice shaking with barely suppressed emotion. "_Don't _cross me."

"Yeah?" scoffed Gilbert, and lifted his chin. "Try me."

They held each other's gazes for another moment, acid green burning into blood red, until a vibrating mobile broke the tension. Arthur, still glaring at his roommate, reached into his pocket to look.

**Sadik Annan: **where are you? we need a guitar, hurry up!

Arthur exhaled sharply and stepped back. He really ought to get going.

"This _isn't _over," he said darkly, and grabbed a grungy t-shirt and skinny jeans to change into. He wasn't about to wear his stuffy school uniform for the rest of the day, but he wasn't willing to change in the room right then, especially with that perverted frog looking on.

"_E-enchanté,_" stammered Francis, and immediately bit his lip when Arthur fixed an annoyed green glower at him.

"Nice meeting you," said the tanned boy with an uncertain sort of cheerfulness, like he was afraid the Brit would explode into fury on him.

Arthur grabbed his electric guitar and gave the trio of boys one last glare before he closed the door.

He was better off without them.

.

It was nearly midnight when Arthur opened the door to his dormitory again.

He tried to sneak in quietly, but Gilbert stirred when he opened the door. The German boy sat up, blinking and squinting, and grunted softly. "The hell?" he muttered into the darkness, his voice echoing emptily in the shadows. Arthur sighed and flicked on the light. It was useless to try and pretend that Gilbert hadn't seen anything. And he couldn't see much anything in the dark, either; the stage lights had nearly _blinded _him.

Gilbert put a hand up to his eyes, eyes scrunched up in irritation. "What're you doing up so late?" he demanded, his voice sounding kind of quiet compared to the club that Arthur had played in. "You smell funny."

Arthur frowned and pulled the collar of his shirt to his nose. It smelled vaguely of sweat and alcohol and that dusty club smell that always hung around the stage. It was the smell of excitement and adrenaline and glitter and the grungy sound of the guitar. He could probably stand there smelling it forever, if not for keeping up the appearance of sanity. _Dear God._

"It doesn't smell like anything," he lied, and pulled it off. Tiny beads of sweat still dribbled down the back of his neck and onto his shoulder blades.

"Uh, yes it does," Gilbert said, scoffing slightly with contempt. "I can smell the alcohol from here."

Arthur shrugged, and pulled on his pajamashirt. He didn't bother taking a shower; it was too late for that. There would be time for that tomorrow.

"Um… you know, you have a history exam tomorrow," Gilbert said, still looking at him with an odd look on his face.

"Yes, I know," Arthur said. "You don't need to be my planner; I've already got a mobile to do that for me." He yawned and flicked off the light. "Good night," he added sharply, and settled down as comfortably as he could in his bed. It wasn't actually too comfortable, but only because Arthur could still feel his blood pumping traces of adrenaline rush. He grinned into his pillow.

"You're breaking curfew," Gilbert said, with an edge of desperation. Like he was trying to get Arthur to care. The British boy almost laughed.

"And you don't all the time," retorted Arthur, rolling over. It was true. Gilbert often came back to the dorm past ten o'clock after "studying" with Francis and Antonio, though Arthur rather thought they did other things, since Gilbert never got good marks in his classes. What they did exactly, he didn't care much to figure out. He didn't like any of them, so why bother?

"Then what are you doing?" Gilbert demanded. He wasn't sleepy anymore, which was especially irritating. Arthur grunted in annoyance.

"Are you always this talkative at night?" he snapped back, and turned on his iPod. He needed music to study; he needed music to perform; he needed music for the sake of music, and of course he needed to sleep too. If he just focused on the riffs, how to play them, when to vibrate, when to bend the note so it slid up smoothly… he'd be nearly asleep in ten minutes.

As the song filled his ears, he couldn't help smiling to himself. It was scarcely twenty minutes ago that he was playing this, surrounded by colored smoke and lights and drunken idiots.

That was all right. Drunken idiots would always be drunken idiots.

But this? This would be his secret.

.

The next night, after successfully avoiding his German-British roommate, Arthur slipped on a grungy t-shirt (that would probably have to go in the wash soon, he thought with a sigh) and black jeans. Then he threw on a vest for good measure, because all of his other jackets were missing, and he always felt kind of exposed without something over his t-shirt. _Damn Gilbert, _he thought bitterly, and grabbed his guitar and headed out the door.

It wasn't hard. The buildings were ridiculously old, and the school hadn't bothered to install cameras or anything. The walls around the building weren't too high, once one got used to vaulting them. And the vines always helped, even if he ripped a couple in the process.

There was a van outside, waiting. It was turned off, for inconspicuity, but if Arthur squinted, he could make out the glow-in-the-dark stickers that decorated the sides. They were really tacky, Arthur thought, but they made his life easier, so he wasn't about to complain.

He was almost to the van when there was a crash and a rustling in the grass behind him. He paused for a second, his heart beating faster. Then his face was suddenly smashed in by a flat surface of dirt and grass. "Umfffph!" he groaned into the ground.

"I got you!" said a familiar, insufferable scratchy voice behind him. "You're sneaking off campus!"

"So're you!" Arthur grunted back. He heard the doors of the van sliding open and footsteps on the ground.

"What's going on?" demanded a deep voice. "Get off of him!"

The pressure on his back lifted, and Arthur rolled over, hugging his guitar protectively. Gilbert glared at him indignantly over him, as did several other faces—one that was kind of fair-looking in the darkness with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth (that was Jager), and another that was tanner, with stubble (Sadik). The fair-looking one was staring Gilbert down.

"What's wrong with you?" said the deep voice again, and Arthur sat up, yawning, thinking suddenly of his literature homework. _Read chapters one to six and answer the following questions with thoughtful answers with at least ten sentences._ Maybe he could finish it during lunch, since lit class was in the afternoon.

"I just wanted to know where he was going!" Gilbert whined, and Arthur scoffed. "What's with you?" the German boy added, looking at the British teenager.

"Nothing," said Arthur.

Jager checked his watch. "We'd better go; otherwise we won't have time to set up."

"What about the kid?" Sadik said, grabbing Gilbert by the collar (much to Arthur's pleasure).

Jager stared at it for a second, and ran a hand through his gelled-to-stand-up hair. "Let's just take him with us."

"Are you _serious?_" Arthur nearly yelled, and earned glares from both Sadik and Jager. "We can't bring him there!"

"We're going to have to," insisted the Dutchman, after taking a drag from his fag. "We don't have _time._"

And with that he jerked his head towards Sadik, and they all crammed into the van. Arthur was squished between another girl about their age with brown hair and green eyes (Elizaveta, the keyboardist, he remembered), and Sadik, who was cramming some kind of Asian crunchy snack into his mouth. Arthur wrinkled his nose slightly and turned to look the other way, which, unfortunately involved looking at Gilbo staring at Elizaveta, who had her eyes closed. Sure, Lizzie, as everyone affectionately called her, was pretty, but not much to Arthur's taste. Arthur wasn't even sure he was partial to that kind of thing.

He'd already found his love anyway, he thought, glancing fondly at his guitar.

It was good enough.

.

The show never seems to be long enough for Arthur. He could have stayed there all night if not for his algebra exam the next day, but maths were easy. Tedious. Unlike this.

The rush was always great. He could breathe in the alcohol and feel slightly dizzy, or he could breathe in the music with his guitar and feel adrenaline rush, but either way it was intoxicating. Leather and steel studs and strings, the thump of the drums, the smoke and the lights and the shadows, he could do that forever if he wanted to, just be one with the music and the crowd and the band…

And it was done. Well, nearly. They were playing last, and the people wanted an encore. So Arthur figured he could do a little something. Maybe.. .just… a little bit of revenge.

He nodded to Jager, and stepped up to the mike. "London!" he proclaimed, grinning widely—_all an act, but performing it's so worth it_—and waving a little bit. "Well, we're the last show tonight, so I hope you all don't mind that we're going to change it up a bit. Is that okay?" he asked them, and received a great cheer in response. There was an awful lot of people in the club that day; word had obviously gone around.

"So," Arthur continued over the cheers. "I actually brought a friend of mine to come see our show… Gilbert wherever you are, get up here!"

More cheers and clapping, and the German boy was hoisted onto the makeshift stage. He grinned and yelled "The awesome is here!" Arthur rolled his eyes.

"So Gilbo here," Arthur began again, throwing an arm around the other boy (Arthur really only wanting to get this over with, but Gilbert was _milking it_ harder than a farmer did a cow), "has decided that he might—_might!—_join our little band here! So we're gonna let you decide for yourself, because this old boy right here is going to _sing a song!_"

The crowd cheered again; _it was a bloody animal_, Arthur thought. But tonight he didn't really care, so the thought was in and out of his head faster than he could really process it. All he was thinking about was Gilbert's murderous look over his shoulder, directed _at Arthur _and meant with _I'm going to bloody get you for this later._ Arthur nodded encouragingly, fake-smiling and shoved him gently towards the mike

"Yeah, um… hi," Gilbert said, and the crowd laughed. That gave him a bit more confidence, and he grinned. "Well, uh… if I completely blow this, then you know whose fault it is."

More laughter. Arthur rolled his head back, laughing. On another day he would have been offended, but the adrenaline and stage lights and everything had made everything brighter, and he couldn't really be bothered by it right now. He'd played one of his greatest sets ever; he was about to humiliate his horrid roommate. Nothing could touch him right now.

"So…" Gilbert said awkwardly. "Should we play something?"

"What do you know?" Jager said lazily. He fingered a random riff on his bass.

"You don't happen to know any Beatles, do you?"

Arthur snorted. It was an odd sound to make onstage, but he really couldn't resist. Gilbert made a face at him.

"Don't be stupid," Sadik said, twirling his sticks in the air. "Jager and I could probably play every single Beatles song recorded. Name it and _challenge accepted._"

Gilbert took a deep breath. "_I Am The Walrus_."

"A wise choice," Jager said, grinning. "Arthur, Lizzie, I'm going to assume you know that one, too."

Arthur nodded and grinned. He was ridiculously giddy. He'd never felt so damn _happy_; being on stage was just the best rush ever. He remembered the first time he performed with Jager and Sadik and Elizaveta—so exhilarating and empowering he was smiling so hard his face hurt. He was smiling really hard now. He might've been a tad too happy at the idea of Gilbert embarrassing himself., too, but right then he didn't care. He thought he would burst out laughing any second during the song, as Elizaveta began fingering it on her keyboard, and Arthur shifted his fingers to the first chord.

Gilbert took a deep breath.

"_I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together…_"

Arthur nearly dropped his guitar—not that it would have really done anything, since he had his guitar strap over his shoulder.

But Gilbert… Gilbert was brilliant. Bloody brilliant.

It wasn't perfect. His singing was most definitely not perfect. A couple of his notes were flat intonation-wise. Sometimes it was thin and scratchy, too much so for Arthur's liking. Whenever he went to a higher register, his voice would strain slightly, and it didn't sound the greatest.

But he had talent. Raw talent.

His voice was amazing in that sense. Simply amazing. There was this mellowness he had, a certain kind of mellowness that came from deep within the chest, not the throat. And even then it still had the classic rock scratchiness, but only a smidge of it. Arthur licked his lips and forced himself to focus on the Lennon masterpiece that he was playing, and not the songs that bubbled forth to his own consciousness. The voice that sang them then was Gilbert's. He couldn't hear anyone else's voice anymore; just the obnoxious German boy who was his dorm mate, the obnoxious German boy who sang with a powerful soul that Arthur only channeled through his guitar. Arthur could sing, yes, and before it had been his own voice that sang… but now it was just Gilbert, all Gilbert.

_Focus! _Arthur shifted his fingers, and listened to the magic.

"_Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower…"_

It was over before he knew it. Gilbert's voice had stopped singing and was now shouting stupid things like "Hellooooooo London!" and "Make some noise!" He waved his arms around and he spun around on the balls of his feet like he was Elvis or someone like that, striking a pose and causing the girls to squeal.

Arthur, in the meantime, was simply standing there, letting the world run around him in a blur of color and alcohol and smoke and music. He could barely feel the wires under his shoes.

The voice. It'd changed his world. Gilbert hadn't even been trying. Arthur hadn't even been trying.

If he closed his eyes, he could see it. This vision. He could see it, hear it, taste it—the sweet taste of fame. Standing on the stage, guitar in his hands, criss-crossing the stage, spilling out of boxes and amps and everywhere. Stage lights hotter than the sun on his face, sweat pouring in buckets down his back. Gilbert headbanging in front of him, pouring his soul into the microphone and letting it spill out of the speakers. And then in the back. A tall boy with wild hair, pale wild hair with hands like blurs, they moved so fast…

_Who? _Arthur said to the boy. _Who are you?_

"Are you talking to someone?" asked a quiet voice behind him, and Arthur spun around to see Elizaveta looking at him with perplexed (and slightly amused, if he wasn't mistaken) eyes.

"Er, no one in particular," Arthur said quickly. He hadn't realized he was talking out loud. He swore under his breath. He must have come across as quite ridiculous, considering Elizaveta's amused look. And he gave a sheepish smile for good measure; Elizaveta was a sucker for his smiles. And he turned around to help Jager and Sadik clear off the stage.

But when he went to sleep that night, he couldn't shake that image from his head, that shining image of glory and stage lights.

And Gilbert next to him.

He couldn't get Gilbert's voice out of his head.

* * *

><p><strong>author's note~<strong>

Final word count: 6,038. …/shot (_And it was going to be longer, too! Aghghhg)_

Jager van Vliet = the Netherlands.

South Premier Queen's Residential Academy doesn't exist, sorry. /sweatdrop


	3. from loathing to partnership

_3. from loathing to partnership._

"So what did you say his range was?" Roma's vice crackled over the speaker.

"Err…. I'm not quite sure," Arthur said, shifting the phone to his other ear (it'd started burning a reddish color) and bit his lip. "A couple octaves? He could sing 'I Am The Walrus' by the Beatles, no problem."

"That's be just over two octaves," Roma mused. "How does he do in the upper register?"

"Not too bad, actually," Arthur said. "A little flat on some notes, but good either way."

Roma laughed very suddenly, making Arthur laugh a little bit. The man's laughter was contagious.

"Roma?"

"Yes?"

"…What are we laughing at?"

A little sniff from the speaker. "I… was just laughing at the ridiculous way we've been acting."

"Sorry?" Arthur asked. He tapped his pencil on the page of his maths notebook, full of equations that he didn't care to know. Or figure out, for that matter.

"Surveying talent wherever we go," Roma said, laughing. "It's like you're doing with him what I'm doing to you three years ago!" He sighed contentedly.

"True," Arthur said vaguely. _And I'm grateful for it._

"So the question really is," Roma continued, not laughing anymore, "what are you going to do about it? There's talent on a silver platter, but talent is only just that when you don't take it anywhere: talent."

"What am I going to do with it?" Arthur asked vaguely. He closed his eyes instinctively, and _damn, _could he see that vision again. That vision of glittering stage lights and hard black stage and the faceless monster of the crowd, roaring in approval. Guitar in his hands, his fingers clutching it like the most precious thing in the world. The blur of the crowd through the earplugs in his ears. And then Gilbert leaning forward in front of him, both hands on the microphone, and breathing in and out and _singing._

"I really don't know," said Arthur.

"All right, then," said Roma, and Arthur shifted the phone so he could hear better. "How are the gigs with my friends?"

Arthur grinned to himself slightly, thinking about the rush of lights and people and guitars. "It's great," he said "Sadik is hilarious, Jager is just _brilliant. _They've also got this keyboardist, Elizaveta? She's about our age."

"Is she pretty at all?"

"Roma!" Arthur groaned exapseratedly into the phone. "She's _my age,_ for God's sake!"

"All right, all right," Roma said good-naturedly. "But you really must send a picture or two—"

"Roma!"

"Okay, I'm sorry," the Italian laughed into the phone. "But really."

Arthur sighed, but a grin crept across his face. "She's great. She really is," he continued, looking out the window and watching the football team practice on the fields. "Better than me."

"Speaking of which," Roma said. "Have you been practicing?"

"Er… you mean keyboard?" Arthur felt his happiness deflate slightly. "Er…"

"You haven't have you?" Roma's voice was suddenly stern, with little trace (if there really was any, Arthur couldn't hear it) amount of mischief and humor.

"Err…" A little rock of guilt formed at the pit of Arthur's stomach, and he could feel himself turning pink in shame. "I'm sorry."

"Do they not have pianos there or anything?"

"No, not really," Arthur half-lied. "But I've been practicing guitar every day! Acoustic _and _electric!"

"Good," crackled Roma over the speaker, and Arthur exhaled slightly as relief flooded his limbs.

"Are you doing well in school?" the Italian man pressed on. "Brushing your teeth and all that?" He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "Haven't gotten caught by the teachers for breaking curfew yet?"

"Of course not," Arthur said, smiling and looking down at his desk. "I'm fine."

"_Reeeeally_," Roma said, sounding fake dubious, and Arthur had to pinch his nose to keep from bursting into laughter. "Well, I'm sure you've got homework or something like that to deal with at the moment?"

Arthur looked down at the page of math equations. "Yes," he said. "I do."

"I'll let you get to that then," Roma said. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Dad." The word slipped out of his mouth before he could think properly, and he bit his lip, cursing his stupidity. Roma wasn't his dad. What was he thinking? He was such a _child _to say something so _stupid _like that!

But even as Arthur was thinking and mentally reprimanding himself, he could hear Roma smile through the phone, and say "Good bye, Arthur," and hang up.

Arthur put down his phone and pressed the little end button. It was red. His mobile was red, like his hair was. It was a nice mobile, one of the ones that slid open to reveal the keypad so he could text. There was even a little camera so he could take pictures with it. Very cool. It was Roma's gift to him for his fourteenth birthday.

It was partially why Arthur hated pressing end.

He set the phone down on the desk and tried to focus on maths again, the black numbers swimming across his vision. He couldn't focus. Roma hadn't said anything about forming a band, but his little quote… _What are you going to do about it? There's talent on a silver platter… what are you going to do about it? _Arthur couldn't get that image out of his mind. It was just pure exhilaration. Standing on that stage, so nervous and excited at the same time that his knees wobbled. Better than anything Rhys snorted or injected or whatever. He wanted it. Sheer exhilaration.

And Gilbert's voice? Gilbert sang well. Gilbert sang all of the melodies in Arthur's head now. That voice—it was just _perfect. _It wasn't completely perfect, but Arthur couldn't even imagine any other voice anymore. Gilbert had the talent. He just had to take it further.

The door to their dorm opened suddenly, and the German boy walked in, his face tired and drawn. _Speak of the devil. _Arthur felt very nervous all of a sudden, like he was going to ask him out or something like that. _Oh dear god!_

"Kirkland? Are you okay?" Gilbert asked him. Arthur blinked and realized he was staring at Gilbert with the oddest expression. _Get a grip, Arthur, get a grip._

"Yes, I'm fine," he said.

"Sure?" Gilbert dumped his bag on the bed and began taking out his school things.

"So… Er…" Arthur swallowed slightly. Of course the idea had to sound completely stupid in his head. Arthur bit his lip and composed himself, his green eyes sliding sideways by an instict that he didn't really understand. "Er… never mind. Sorry."

Gilbert made a face. "You know, I really hate when people do that."

"Sorry?"

"When people take nearly _forever _to drag out their sentences and then decide to not say anything," Gilbert grumbled. He dropped a thick history book on the floor, which landed with a loud thump. Arthur cringed.

"Well… If you really want to hear…" Arthur swallowed, closed his eyes. "I was wondering…"

Gilbert nodded. "You were wondering?"

Arthur frowned slightly, scrunching up his face in annoyance. _Just ignore his obnoxiousness and remember the voice. Remember the voice. _Easy enough to do. "I was wondering… erm. ifyou'd… startabandwithme."

He regretted it immediately; there was an awkward heartbeat of silence that followed.

"Sorry?" Gilbert's voice went up about two octaves, and Arthur opened his eyes to see an expression of shock on his face. "Would you repeat that?"

"I was wondering. If. You'd. Start. A band. With me." Arthur forced the words out of his mouth. Slowly. They dropped the floor heavily, like rain of dense drops of lead. His heart pounded just as heavily, like a block of ice in his chest, alive and pulsating.

"A band." Gilbert's voice was slightly incredulous.

"Yes. A band."

"Guitars and everything?"

"Yes."

"…Like the Beatles?"

"Like the Beatles."

Gilbert's face when through a series of expressions. Arthur watched closely as it shifted from shocked to confused to starstruck to shocked again. It was almost comical, if not for the fact that Arthur was hanging from a cliff, waiting for Gilbert's answer.

"A band," the German boy said slowly. "A _band._"

He sat down, his face still incredulous.

"Wow," he managed. He brushed his short fringe out of his face and sat down on his bed. "Wow."

Arthur mentally banged his head on his desk. _Once a bloody idiot, always a bloody idiot._ "What exactly do you mean by 'wow'?"

"I just… wow." Gilbert grinned suddenly, his sharp cheekbones standing out in clear definition. "That's just _brilliant._"

Arthur knit his brows. "Really?"

"Yes! It's awesome!" Gilbert insisted. "But…"—his face fell slightly—"don't you already have a band?"

Arthur furrowed his brows together. "Do you mean with Jager? Not really. They only let me play with them on gigs and such so I can get performing experience. I mean, I practice with them and things like that, but I'm not _really _part of their band." _And I need to calm this monster. This rip-roaring monster of music inside me that won't shut up, and being in Jager's little band isn't cutting it._

"Oh. Wow. Okay." Gilbert's eyes were shining. "So what would I do?"

"Sing."

"Really?" Gilbert leaned forward. "Do you think I'd be good at it?"

"Well, yeah." Arthur leaned back in his chair. "After what happened at that last gig in London."

"When you forced me to sing?" Gilbert asked, his reddish eyes very round. "Was I awesome? Do you think I was awesome?"

"Erm… yeah. I guess you were."

"Do I get to learn guitar?" Gilbert pressed on.

"Er… sure." Arthur put his pencil down; he had been tapping it nervously on his book. "Sure. Of course. Well, actually, you might learn bass."

"Bass!" Gilbert fell backwards on his bed. "Awesome!"

Arthur could do nothing but sit there and stare at his crazy roommate.

"So who else are you gonna ask?" Gilbert said, rolling over so he was facing Arthur. "You know, for drums?"

Arthur swallowed. He hadn't really been expecting this question."Um… I don't know."

"Oh, oh, then let me help!" Gilbert sat up, and put his chin on his fist so he looked like _The Thinker._ "I want to contribute! You can the music guy, and I'll be the cool guy! Hey, when do I get to learn bass?"

The Brit wrinkled his nose in distaste. He was already starting to sort of regret his decision. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. _Remember his voice. Remember his freaking voice._

"What if we ask Francis?" Gilbert said thoughtfully, and Arthur snapped his eyes open.

"No!" he said adamently. "No, I don't want him in there!"

Gilbert looked at him. Arthur felt his throat close up in guilt and anger.

"Before I say anything more," the German boy said slowly. "I want to ask you a question."

A pause. Arthur swallowed again, and met the boy's reddish eyes steadily. He felt his hands shaking slightly, swaying in the thick tension of the room.

"Why," said Gilbert, "do you hate Francis so much?"

Arthur set his jaw, tried not to imagine the French boy's face in his consciousness, and tried to think how to answer Gilbert's question.

And then he found he couldn't.

Some stories people just don't tell.

.

All was quiet on the campus of SPQR Academy. Unless if room 218 of the Eckland Residence Halll counted. Then it wouldn't be all quiet.

_Drangg…_

"No, no, no," Arthur said, frowning. His right hand was tucked under his chin, and his eyes were squinting at the pale German boy sitting across from him. "That's not right."

Gilbert looked down his fingers. "Argh!" he groaned. "I can never freaking get it right!" He then proceeded to hit himself in the forehead with the headstock.

Arthur cringed, watching the action. "Don't do that, please," he said in a slightly strangled voice, and Gilbert looked up.

"Oh." He ducked his head, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," said Arthur, but his expression said otherwise.

"No, it's your bass. I'm sorry," Gilbert said, his eyebrows crinkling together. Arthur quirked an eyebrow. It was quite odd to see this one-eighty turnaround in his roommate, especially in their dorm. If he wasn't deluding himself (which he was quite sure he wasn't), then Gilbert had been acting differently towards him. Nicer. Less arrogant. Docile, even? Arthur even felt himself starting to like the bloke a little bit. Only a little something about the German bothered him. Just a little bit. Only a little.

"Arthur?" Gilbert tapped the fretboard. "Earth to Arthur?"

Arthur blinked. "Erm. Sorry. Where were we again?"

"C major…," Gilbert said, look down and awkwardly placing his fingers on the fingerboard. Then he looked at his other hand, gripped the pick nervously, and swung downward. The sound that vibrated was soft and metallic, and Arthur nodded.

"That's good," said Arthur. "Don't forget that you don't play that bottom string; you have to mute it."

"Right." Gilbert licked his lips and tried again.

"Yeah, that's right." Arthur stood up. "I think all you really need to do is practice that and shifting between chords. Then maybe we can get started on other things. Like riffs. Serious riffs."

"Seriously?" Gilbert groaned. "Why?"

"It's only been two weeks since you started bass," Arthur pointed out. "And you're the one that insisted we do chords now, since they're 'so important to the basis of rock music,'" he added, making finger quotes.

Gilbert scratched his head. "Yeah. I guess I do stink at it."

Arthur shrugged and checked his watch. It was almost one o'clock, which meant it was almost time for him to go to class. He took his school books and began putting them in his bag, including his extremely thick _Western Civilisation _textbook. How anyone could write so much about Europe, Arthur would never understand. Or care.

"Where're you going?" asked Gilbert. He kept strumming softly, and Arthur frowned a little bit.

"Do you never stop playing that thing?" he asked, and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.

Gilbert grinned sheepishly. "It's really fun."

Arthur exhaled, grabbed his thermos, and put his hand on the doorknob. "I'm going to class. What about you; don't you have class to go to? It's almost one."

"No," said Gilbert. "I've got a free period next."

"Oh. All right." Arthur turned back around and opened the door.

"Hold up a bit," Gilbert said.

Arthur paused, his hand still on the handle, one foot halfway out the door. He put his foot down and looked at Gilbert. "Yes?"

"…Do we have a drummer yet?"

The image of that wild-haired boy from Arthur's vision flashed briefly in his mind's eye. How the boy's hands were so fast they were a machine, skillfully hitting the toms with this straight precision. Arthur was fairly certain the boy was only a figment of his imagination, but if there was a guy out there like him…

Arthur breathed in and out. _Do we have a drummer yet?_

"No," he said slowly to Gilbert. "We don't."

He turned away and shrugged.

"But I'm looking."

* * *

><p><strong>author's note~<strong>

This section didn't quite fit into the second chapter (which came out super ridiculously long) but it doesn't quite fit into what was planned for the third chapter either, so… it stands by itself… /sweatdrop. I'm just gonna call this a baby chapter. Cheers!

[And also, I was incredibly busy this week. *sob* I promise to return with a long juicy chapter next time! :)]

*A lot of people noticed Arthur's intense bitterness towards Francis, even though they'd barely been in the same room for two seconds. …I have no explanation for this phenomenon. I'M WORKING ON IT, PROMISE PROMISE.


	4. the hands that never stop moving

_4. the hands that never stop moving._

Arthur woke up suddenly in the middle of his classroom, jerking his head up—his very red head, although it was starting to grow out so you could see his blond roots—to the sound of a large, collective groan.

"You can't be serious!" yelled the very loud American next to him. His accent grated on Arthur's ears, and the Brit narrowed his eyes and drew his collar up so he wouldn't have to hear the American's voice. The boy sitting next to Arthur—whatever his name was—was too loud and obnoxious for Arthur's liking. And he didn't make the most effective of lab partners, either.

"All right, hurry it up," the teacher said, clapping her hands. Arthur rolled her eyes as she continued: "Switch seats, already; the chart's already up on the projector."

Arthur sighed and grabbed his bag. He couldn't remember how late he'd stayed up last night, high on performing and playing guitar. Ever since Gilbert had joined their little group, the crowds had been bigger and better. Word had gotten around more, and the crowd demanded more encores. Which meant getting back to their dorm later. Which meant less sleep. He and Gilbert were usually so exhausted that they'd collapse on their beds, fully clothed, and wake up with crease marks on their faces and a very dry mouth. Then they'd miss breakfast, so Arthur's stomach would hurt until lunch. That was a long three hours. Three hours of dealing with his painfully empty stomach.

Arthur slumped forward on the lab table and yawned. Today, luckily for him, was only a review day—reinforcing the concepts of bonding or something or another. Arthur knew perfectly fine how to determine the structure of a molecular compound, so he figured he could just hold a pencil and pretend to draw diagrams. Then he would just close his eyes for a little bit…

Except when he tried, he found that he really couldn't sleep. The kid who sat next to him kept tapping his fingers. Really obonoxiously. And Arthur, while he could sleep to rock music, he couldn't sleep to annoying tapping.

He had very large hands, the boy sitting next to him. Not chubby but not completely slim either. Somewhere in the middle. Very strong-looking. Arthur shivered slightly at the random morbid thought of those fingers clasped around something, something living, watching it squeeze…

"Arthur, Mathias, how are you doing?" the teacher asked the suddenly.

"Good," said the blond boy sitting next to Arthur. He bobbed his head up and down, and his fingers kept tapping the desk. Arthur swallowed his contempt (tried to, anyway), but it didn't work. The tapping was _so incredibly annoying, _especially since the kid was using his _nails_ to tap on the tabletop, so instead of a soft thump, they were clickity-clack noises. It irritated him to no end. He just wished that Mathias would _stop drumming his fingers—_

Wait.

Arthur slid his green eyes over to look at Mathias Kohler a little more closely, and nearly fell off his stool in shock.

Mathias was tall. He was a good couple inches taller than Arthur, and had a strong jaw and flat stomach. He had a long-sleeved red-and-white Liverpool Football Club shirt on, and and thin jeans. His face was very pale, with a straight nose, light blue eyes, and light blond hair, lighter than Arthur's. It was gelled to stand up in a flared, wild, style. _Exactly like the boy with hands like blurs._

Arthur bit his lip. This wasn't the same boy he'd had from the brief vision he'd had while drunk on the adrenaline of playing Lennon's "I Am The Walrus," was it? The resmblence was ridiculously uncanny; there was no way that it could have been the same person. The boy Arthur saw couldn't be real. A figment of his imagination. No, he wasn't real. But then again, here he was, right in Arthur's face, with the same hair, the same energy, the same hands that never seemed to stop moving.

The more Arthur listened, the more he realized that the tapping wasn't random; it was actually a drum beat. A fast-paced, upbeat rhythm. Yes, that was it, then if Arthur paired it with a G minor chord—

No, no, no, what was he thinking? Mathias couldn't be their drummer. HE hardly knew the guy. But how could he resist pure, raw talent sitting next to him on a silver platter? He took his chances with Gilbert; why wouldn't Mathias refuse? Mathias wouldn't refuse. Of course Mathias wouldn't refuse. Of course not. Yes. He would join their band. Yes.

Now, Arthur thought, all he had to do was _ask._

.

"What did you say his name was again?" Gilbert asked Arthur, his reddish eyes intently trained on the field of football players running back and forth.

"Mathias," Arthur whispered back. "Mathias Kohler. And shove off, your foot's in the way."

Gilbert sniffed. "What kind of name is that?"

"Danish!" Arthur hissed. "His dad is from Denmark or something. Now move your foot!"

It was rather chilly that day. October had arrived, and already the students had begun pulling out scarves and sweaters. The trees were turning color and even the grass that Gilbert and Arthur were crouching on had turned a sickly yellowish color. Arthur shivered as the gust penetrated his leather jacket Roma had given him Christmas past.

Gilbert shifted with a grunt of annoyance, and rubbed his hands together to keep warm. "I can't see anything," he complained. "Which one is him?"

"Don't be stupid," Arthur snapped. "It's the bloke over there, with the ball."

And Mathias Kohler was, at that moment, in possession of the ball, his tall, slim form racing across the field. His mouth was twisted into a wicked smile, his shirt pulled back by the wind to reveal a flat stomach.

As they watched, Mathias ran up to the end of the field, sidestepped a defender with amazing dexterity, swung his foot back for a shot…

…and fell flat on his face, tripped by another defender.

"Gits!" he said playfully, peeling his face from the dirt. It was stained with brown now, from the muddy fields. "That was a foul, a foul!"

"Shut up, Kohler," said one of the other players, and helped the smiling Mathias up.

Arthur could feel himself frowning instinctively at the stupidity of their antics (like he so often did with Feliciano and Roma) but Gilbert was practically choking back laughter. It was really quite annoying; Gilbert's laugh was the most obnoxious thing to reach Arthur's ears, and that was saying a lot. Not to mention that the German boy was making a complete racket, rocking back and forth and rolling around and slapping his thigh. Arthur sighed. _This boy is too easily amused._

It got to the point where Gilbert was rocking so much that he hit one of the metal beams of the stands that they were hiding in. Arthur, with reflexes that he hadn't even known existed, slapped his hand over Gilbert's howl of pain. All the football players had turned to look at the stands with an odd look on their face. Arthur's heart beat faster, and he was well aware of the heightened, over-sharp quality of his senses that adrenaline always brought—the colors brighter, the noises louder, the air colder. _Don't let them see us here… oh god._

"What was that?" Mathias squinted uneasily at the stands, and Arthur held his breath.

"I dunno. Probably just some pop cans rolling around in there," said another boy. "Come on, let's go."

After one final dubious look at the stands, Mathias shrugged nonchalantly and jogged back to the other side of the field.

Arthur exhaled and turned to look at Gilbert, who had an angry look on his face.

"What'd you do that for?" the German boy hissed after he pulled Arthur's hand off his mouth. (Arthur was still relieved that Gilbert hadn't bitten his palm.) His red eyes glared at Arthur irritably.

"Sneaking around is more effective if you _don't make any noise!_" Arthur hissed back.

"Why are we even doing this, anyway?" Gilbert grumbled. "We could've just gone up and asked him like any normal person, but _nooo_, the freaky kid with fake red hair says we have to _stalk_ the bloke—Oww! What was that for?"

Arthur fixed Gilbert with an acid green glare. "_Don't _insult my hair. Seriously. I don't make fun of _your _bloody white hair—"

"—because it's awesome—"

"—so don't make fun of mine." Arthur set his jaw.

"Yeah, yeah," said Gilbert, turning back to look at the field. "So what's the plan?"

Arthur frowned, still rather annoyed at the hair insults. "Sorry?"

"What's the plan?" Gilbert repeated. "How are we going to get him to join?"

"…I don't know."

"Are you serious." Gilbert stared at Arthur, another expression of annoyance on his face. "You drag me all the way across campus to hide out in the freezing cold stands and you don't know how to ask him?"

"Well, do you?" Arthur retorted back.

"Do you know if he's actually a drummer?" Gilbert said, dodging the question. "Cuz it'd be nice to have some ready-made drummer who could actually _play—"_

"—like _you_ could when you first started bass—"

"—shut up! And it's not like I _wanted _to learn bass in the first place—"

"—as I remember, you were _quite eager _to start learning—"

"Rubbish! You forced to!; I couldn't _just _sing and be done with it, like you said—"

"Because it's _better _if you can do both, like I can—"

"So tell me," broke in a new voice—with another scouse accent! Arthur furrowed his brows together in surprise—"What are you doing hiding in the stands during football practice?"

Arthur and Gilbert froze. They slowly turned their heads so they were looking into the cold blue stare of Mathias Kohler.

"Uh…" Gilbert (much to Arthur's deep satisfaction) turned a bright shade of red, which looked very funny on his usually pale white face. "Watching?"

"Don't lie to me," said Mathias, straightening up a littl ebit—he'd bent over to put his face between the seats as to talk to them. "You two were making a racket enough they could hear all the way back in Liverpool."

"R-really?" said Gilbert weakly.

"Really." The tall Danish boy wiped his sweaty face with a towel. "Some rubbish about drummers? And definitely something about hair."

The roommates exchanged guilty glances.

"Well," Arthur began.

"The thing is," said Gilbert at the same time.

They paused to glare at each other for a second, while Mathias blinked in confusion.

Gilbert jerked his head to Arthur. "You tell him."

Arthur sighed, slightly amazed the high-and-mighty Gilbert Beilschmidt allowed him to do the honors, and crawled out of the stands. He could feel his hand shaking nervously in anticipation. What if he said no? _Don't let him say no. Please don't let him say no._

"Well," Arthur began again. "Gilbert and I, er, we were thinking about—I mean," he added, noticing a glare from Gilbert, "we've formed a band. Like, a rock band."

He looked at Mathias hopefully, but the Danish boy just looked at him as if to say _Your point?_

Arthur took another deep breath of cold air. "We want you to be our drummer."

Ther ewas no reaction at first. Arthur's hopes fell a little bit, and he smiled to himself bitterly. What was he expecting, an overjoyed yell and confetti to rain down on them out of nowhere? Fat chance of that. They hadn't exactly made the most likeable impression either, hiding in the stands like rapists and murderers. What was he thinking?

Mathias, after about five seconds, appeared to get the same thought, because he snorted very loudly, and fell over on the mudy field, laughing.

Gilbert at this point had also climbed out of the stands and was glaring at Arthur. Again.

"If you think you can do any better, then be my guest!" Arthur sniped angrily. The German opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by Mathias, still laughing.

"Blimey!" he said, between gasps of breath. "You can't be serious! I don't play any musical instruments, let alone drums!"

"It's not hard," Gilbert piped up, ignoring Arthur's glare of contempt. "Take a couple of sticks and bang them. Easy."

"Well—" Arthur started, but Mathias shrugged and nodded.

"It sounds easy enough. I guess I could give it a go," he said thoughtfully. Arthur slapped his palm to his face. It really wasn't as easy as Gilbert made it out to be, and he'd tried Sadik's drums enough to know. Then again, Mathias had that natural sense of rhythm that drummers so often needed. _Yeah, it would be worth a try._

"So," he said loudly to the other two boys, who were bantering good naturedly (he was actually quite jealous of this, but not like he would ever admit it). "When do you think you can try the drums?"

"Er…" Gilbert's eyes shifted to the side, thinking. "You don't think the school band would let us use their set, would they?"

"No. They wouldn't," Mathias said.

Gilbert looked at Arthur. "Any ideas, then?"

Arthur thought. Then he looked at Mathias and grinned.

"How d'you fancy a little field trip off campus?"

.

The next day, Arthur and Mathias skipped classes (including a particularly difficult chemistry exam over nomenclature) and went to see Sadik Annan. Gilbert stayed on-campus, because ehe wanted to spend some quality time with his bass and his froggy friends. Something like he wanted to show off to Francis and Antonio. Arthur shuddered to think of Francis, with all that French infesting their room, but hopefully, when he got back, he wouldn't have to smell the cologne. Ugh, French cologne. He never understood why people valued them so much; the smell was all stuffy and chemically and obnoxious and in your face. Typical French bastards. Not to mention their commercials made no sense whatsoever.

The taxi ride was quiet. Mathias had taken out his phone and was texting someone; Arthur didn't bother looking who. His own mobile was tucked in his jacket pocket, along with his iPod. He had his earphones dangling around his neck right then.

When their driver pulled up to Sadik's flat, they tipped him generously and went in.

It was an awkward ride in the lift; they were squished together very closely by the walls of the tiny box. The thing was barely over a meter wide, and they stood side by side, not saying anything. Just like in the taxi. _Well,_ Arthur thought, _we hardly know each other, so it makes sense right? _He glanced at Mathias briefly, and saw the other boy had his hands stuck in his pockets and was biting his lip nervously.

Arthur kept his eyes on the screen at the top of the lift. It flashed little numbers—_G, 1, 2, 3, 4. _He wondered why Sadik chose to live in a place with so many floors. Or at least on a very high floor. Arthur's flat was only on the second floor, and that already bothered him enough. Living on whatever floor Sadik lived on, that would probably drive Arthur mad within a span of five minutes. The long wait in the elevators were certainly no help. He wondered when the thing had even been built. Whenever it was, it was long overdue for a repair.

"Arthur?" Mathias asked suddenly. The Brit looked over at the other boy, and nearly laughed at the scared, babyish look on the taller boy's face. If not for the fact that Mathias could probably pound him into a bloody pulp. And that Mathias was actually really scared.

"Yes?" he replied back, trying to stifle a yawn. He was too tired.

"Are you sure this is safe?"

Arthur gave him a strange look. "Do you mean the lift or Sadik?"

Mathias laughed briefly, a short, dry chuckle. It was replaced quickly by another nervous look. "Your friend. I mean, uh, Sadik."

"Oh." Arthur shrugged. "I suppose. I mean," he added with a wry smile, "he hasn't exactly tried to rape me yet."

Mathias quirked a brow, and Arthur mentally hit his head on the lift wall for saying something so stupidly awkward.

"You can't be serious," said the Danish boy, after a moment's hesitation.

"He hasn't, really," Arthur repeated. "Don't worry, Sadik's brilliant."

Mathias shrugged, but he'd visibly relaxed a bit more. The tension in his shoulders was gone, and he'd stopped biting his lip.

Arthur decided that at that moment that even if he didn't know the tall Danish football player at all, he rather liked Mathias Kohler. And not because Mathias told him he was good at guitar either (though that certainly helped). He, at least, had none of the arrogant attude that Gilbert Beilschmidt had. Nor did he have Gilbert's oddly bipolar characteristics—observant and compliant one minute and obnoxiously rebellious the next. Even thinking about having to deal with it gave Arthur a headache.

The lift doors opened; they walked out and down the hallway until they came to a battered and worn door. Arthur knocked.

After a minute and some shuffling, the door opened.

"Artie-boy!" a man with tanned skin and stubble opened the door, a huge grin on his face. It was partially obscured by a pair of trendy sunglasses. Arthur cringed slightly at the familiarly annoying nickname, and swallowed the bad memories that threatened to rise up in his throat.

"Sadik, please don't call me that," he said in a stifled-sounding voice, and walked in, not bothering to look at Mathias to see if the Dane was following. He just needed some tea.

Sadik closed the door. "So, Artie, aren't you going to introduce me to this fit bloke here? Be a proper English gentleman, will you?"

"Don't call him fit, that's just odd," retorted Arthur. "And this is Mathias Kohler." He gestured nonchalantly towards the Danish boy. Mathias waved awkwardly.

Sadik inclined his head, wearing a half-grin that creeped Arthur out. "A pleasure, Mathias Kohler."

"You too," said Mathias self-consciously.

"Let's get started, yes?" Sadik adjusted his sunglasses with a single finger and walked towards the drum kit set up in the corner of the living room. Mathias shot one last slightly panicked look at Arthur, before following Sadik towards the drumset. Arthur couldn't really blame the other boy; there was a ridiculous number of toms that surrounded the tiny cushioned stool. Arthur shrugged and settled back into the kitchen.

"Sit." Sadik gestured to the stool. Mathias nervously sat.

Arthur sat himself down at the wooden kitchen table and helped himself to orange juice, though he wished Sadik had Earl Grey. The Turk did have tea, but it was oolong, and the one time that Arthur had tried it, he wasn't really partial to it. It was too Asian and didn't mix well with milk. (Although at this notion he thought himself to be racist—no, _ethnocentric_—and hastily looked in the cabinet for some biscuits.)

In the background he could hear Sadik running through all the parts of a drum set: the floor tom, the mid tom, the snare, the kick, the hi-hats, the crash, the ride… Arthur didn't understand why there needed to be so many… _things,_ but maybe there wasn't much room to adjust them. Either way, it sort of reminded him of Roma and his teaching Arthur the guitar. The way Sadik's voice instructed firmly, the way Mathias nodded intently, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, his ears seeming to open up and really let Sadik's words sink in. Arthur felt a little homesick all of a sudden, and wished that when he looked out the window he wouldn't seet he Big Ben, but instead the docks on the west side of his hometown. The familiar buildings and skyscrapers of Liverpool. The familiar lilt of the scouse accent, instead of the Cockney rubbish here in London.

He decided to pull out his iPod and listen ot the music, just sink himself in it and wrap it around him like a blanket. It revitalized him, and he could feel the life flowing back into him again. The music was his life. It always had been.

He didn't know how long he was sitting at Sadik's kitchen table when the Turk tapped his shoulder. He pulled an earbud out and looked into Sadik's face. It was grinning mischievously. Usually Arthur didn't take that as a good thing, but since Mathias was here, Arthur was a little more willing to take his chances.

"We're playing," Sadik said, and shoved an electric guitar into Arthur's hands. Arthur figured that it belonged to Jager, since the two were flatmates. It was a nice guitar, though he wrinkled his noise at the unclipped strings. Arthur sat down on the couch and draped his arm over it like he'd done so many times.

"Take Me Out," Sadik said, handing Arthur sheet music. "Are you any good at sightreading?"

"Sort of…," said Arthur. His green eyes scanned it quickly. Simple enough, he thought.

Arthur glanced back at Mathias, who nodded. He looked very different than the nervous boy who'd walked into the flat. Or even the skeptical boy in the football kit where he'd first met them. His chin was higher; he sat up straighter and there was a spark in his blue eyes that wasn't there before. As Arthur plugged in his amp, Mathias tapped his sticks nervously in anticipation. "Are you ready yet?" he asked impatiently.

Arthur plucked his strings, frowning as he twisted the tuners. "Almost," he said, although he was really kind of stalling because he was grinning to himself inside. The change in Mathias was amusing and awe-inspiring at the same time. Before, Arthur mused, the boy was fun-loving but not serious about anything. Restless, too. Football, all the difficult classes, all of that was for university applications. But now, with the drums… he was about to find that out.

He tapped his toe four times and launched into the chord-heavy beginning, singing to help keep track of the music.

"_So if you're lonely, you know I'm here, waiting for you…_"

There was always something very energetic and strong about the sound of the drums. Arthur had always felt it, thumping in the back of the stage, leading everyone in the contagious beat, but nevrer had he fully realized the power of the drums, raw and powerful, reverbating through his bones. His fingers were guided by the crash of the cymbals, the pulse of the kick. The drums were wild and rebellious, and yet steadily deliberate, pumping a new life to the song Arthur hadn't heard before. Sure, the guitar gave a song its soul, the voice its heart, but drums, without drums… there wouldn't exist the energy, the lifeblood, the heartbeat to the voice.

It was fantastic.

Just fantastic.

Mathias Kohler was fantastic.

Arthur's pick hit the final chord right as the door to the flat opened, an din walked in a tall man with gelled brown hair and pale greenish eyes. Around his neck was a blue-and-white striped scarf, and a stub of a cigarette. Usually a cynical expression accompanied it too, except his face wasn't cynical. It was lit up in excitement and he adjusted his scarf with a wide grin on his face.

"Brilliant!" Jager van Vliet declared. "Absolutely fucking brilliant!"

Mathias turned pink and looked down at the drum set, though it didn't do much to hide his very wide grin. "Well, it was only our first run-through."

"Very true," Sadik said thoughtfully. "You missed a lot of drumroll cues. All in all, it was pretty rough."

Mathias cringed. "Sorry."

Arthur looked down at his fingers. He hadn't even gotten all the chords in time, either, and he felt Jager was over-praising. Maybe he'd overdone the flourishes and the little changes he'd made to it. Aggh. Sadik was right; it was rough.

"Rubbish!" Jager chided. "It was amazing!"

Mathias exchanged glances with Arthur. Jager went on and on about their talent, their fresh take, the strength of the drums, but the drummer in question only looked at Arthur, crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue.

Arthur laughed. He could see himself getting along well with Mathias. The taste was there, too, just a trace of it, just an edge of the sweetness and the rush on the tip of his tongue. He could almost taste it.

The taste of fame.

They were on their way.

**author's note~**

The highly anticipated arrival of Mathias Kohler, aka Denmark! He's a fun character to write; I love him so muuuuuch! *heart*

[[ Final word count (for those people like me who care): 4,120. ]]

*Toms = drum thingers. Kick is the bass drum cuz you have to push the pedal down… hahahaha! Hi-hats, crash, and ride, those are all cymbal thingers.

*Also, I read somewhere that what would be the first floor in America would actually be called the ground floor in the UK. So it goes ground floor, then first floor (second floor in America), and etc etc. I don't really know if that's true, but I know that's what they do in France. Eh. Whatever. /sweatdrop


	5. an incurable addiction to stage lights

_5. an incurable addiction to stage lights_

It was snowing.

Big white flakes of it. Arthur could see them, whizzing by the window of his compartment. HE could barely make them out against the blreak grayish sky. They flew past in a blur, spinning once, twice, before blowing away into the distance.

Arthur shifted his long gray coat to the side and yawned. It was past two hours since he'd stepped on the train, the train taking him back _home_, back to Liverpool. London was nice, sure, but the underground scene in Liverpool was by far better than London's. And the capital city was starting to get under his skin for some reason. Perhaps it was just the accents. Or maybe it was just him. Either way, he was glad to be going home.

It was odd, Arthur mused absently, how fast the past two months had passed. He was probably only saying that now, sitting here on a train at the beginning of winter holidays, but he couldn't help but remember how he'd spent the months in the stairwells, with Mathias and Gilbert. Gilbert would be humming absently, Arthur fingering riffs on his guitars, and Mathias tapping his sticks on whatever surface he could find—the walls, the windowsill, the banister, and sometimes even Gilbert's head, given the chance. Then on Saturdays they would sneak out and have a proper practice in the abandoned warehouse behind Jager and Sadik's flat, with amps and drum kit and everything. It was coming along nicely, their band, Arthur supposed, looking out the window. They'd managed several covers of a couple of songs (relatively easy in skill level, though, he thought) and even attempted an arrangement of some American pop songs (at Gilbert's urging) which they got through. Barely.

It was good, though. Gilbert practised his bass constantly, and Jager taught him some vocal exercises that he did at lunch. It attracted their fair shares of odd stares, but Gilbert got better. And Mathias? Well, Mathias was just amazing. In the short two-month period, they'd gotten pretty far. Everyone, even Mathias the slacker, put out during practice and in between.

And now he was going home. Gilbert had borrowed his bass for the holidays, so it was just him and his guitars. It felt quite lonely.

He had to admit, he had gotten used to the companionship of the band. Mathias was silly and did whatever he liked, which was often grounds for a good laugh. As for Gilbert, he and Arthur still clashed head-to-head more than he'd like. Mathias often had to act as a mediator between them, but it was getting better. Arthur fought less with his roommate now than he did before, save for maybe their music tastes (well, bits of it), and the time they actually went to bed. But Gilbert was proving likeable and funny, and Arthur was slowly getting used to it. Slowly.

Actually, the only thing that Arthur really could not _stand_ about Gilbert was Francis and Antonio.

Well, Antonio he could handle; the boy was not much more than a sadly oblivious sheltered child. Francis… Francis was a different story.

There was one particular night where they were all gathered in Arthur and Gilbert's dorm and studying (well, cramming, really) for exams. Arthur had been sitting by himself going over algebraic functions and popping crisps and biscuits into his mouth as he worked, when Francis had come over and asked him a question.

He didn't even rememeber what the question was. All he remembered was that frog's face close to his, those blue eyes oh-so-innocent and shy. Like that was going to sway him. It was like the frog didn't know what personal space was! Arthur had tried not to breathe in Francis's overpowering cologne and leaned away, muttering something like "go away." He hadn't wanted to take in too much breath.

Arthur wrinkled his nose at the thought of the French boy and leaned back into his seat. Best not to think about the slimy frog that the train was taking him away from. Instead—he groaned to himself slightly—he ought to think about home. Family. If he was right, then Erin and Liam woudn't be home until next week, and Ian would be off running around. Rhys—well he was always off smoking so who cared about him, really? The lad was always up to something dodgy, and Arthur didn't care to find out or get involved. Maybe he should just take a walk as soon as he dumped his stuff at the flat. Why hadn't he thought of that earlier? He was an idiot. A bloody idiot. He needed to take a walk around Liverpool again, like he always used to.

A voice on the loudspeaker crackled to life and announced that they would shortly be pulling into the Lime Street station, and Arthur stuck his iPod in the pocket of his jacket and stretched. Sitting in one place for such a long time did funny things to one's behind. He grabbed his bags and hauled him out of his compartment.

He felt better once he'd stepped out onto the street. It had been so long since he'd breathed in good old Liverpudlian air, cool and fresh in his lungs. He tucked his scarf in a little tighter and walked on. Well, a taxi took him to his flat, but he walked by himself up the stairs and through the door.

No one was home. Arthur felt a slight breath of relief as he picked through the disgusting dump that was their living room. In the months he'd been away, the dirt had built up into a thick layer on the carpet. On top of that a thick lining of dust covered the furniture. Ale cans still littered the carpet, and he gave a little shudder of distatste. Arthur wondered bitterly where Uncle John was. The old fart was supposed to look after them and keep the flat clean, but did he? Considering the mess, Arthur thought otherwise.

He dumped his stuff in a hidden place where Ian and Rhys wouldn't find it and mess with it, and headed out again.

It had been a long time since he'd taken a walk like this. He'd missed Liverpool. London had the Thames and the Tower and the Bridge and the big clock that had a fancy name, but it had nothing on Liverpool. He missed the city, the heritage, the familiar streets and buildings, the old and new skyscrapers and buildings and the pale sky. The sky was the same everywhere in England, but here, _here _Arthur could look up and smile and breathe in and say _home._

Liverpool. _Home. _

He went down to the docks again. Albert dock. He went there only sometimes; there were usually too many people there for his liking. It was a tourist trap, it was, but he wanted to go there right then. The Beatles Story. Like if he could stand there long enough he might absorb Lennon's genius. Say the word to himself. _Beatles, Beatles, Beatles. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah._

The wind picked up and blew through his hair. It was cold, the shivers ran through his coat. He tucked his scarf around him closer, and stared at the white letters, ignoring the people that streamed past him, speaking all sorts of different languages and armed with cameras. _The Beatles. Beatles, Beatles Beatles. _What was he doing here? Inspiration? The dream to be great? He could feel it humming underneath his feet here, the sheer greatness and legacy of the Beatles. To be like them… if he could feel like that for an instant, if he could stand on that stage and hear the roar of the crowd… if he closed his eyes he could _almost almost almost see it…_

"Kirkland?"

Arthur opened his eyes and turned around to see Gilbert standing there, red jacket and jeans and everything. His pale cheaks were flushed from the winter chill. He was looking at Arthur with a surprised look, looking almost as equally as shocked as Arthur felt inside. He'd always been well aware of Gilbert's Scouse accent, but he'd never really processed that Gilbert was from Liverpool… until right then. With Gilbert standing in front of him, mouth slightly open, eyes round, hand half-raised and a single finger pointing at Arthur. Hell, Arthur hadn't even seen him on the train… but then remembered Gilbert had actually gone home a few days earlier.

"Er… Hi," said Arthur, feeling very awkward.

"Damn, Kirkland," Gilbert said. "You look… horrible."

Arthur looked down. He thought he looked fine, but he was starting to feel his skinny jeans slipped on a little bit _too _easily. Maybe he hadn't had enough to eat. It was a good thing that Roma hadn't seen yet; he would've gotten the scolding of his life.

"You should come round my place for dinner," the German boy continued. "My mum's making scouse."

The expression was so odd to Arthur's ears that he laughed. "What?"

"Yeah… like the stew." Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying that you've lived here in Liverpool all your life and you've never ever had scouse?"

"_No_," Arthur said defensively. "I didn't know that it was a soup."

"Stew," Gilbert corrected. "Come on, you really need to have some. It's the best. And," he said, smiling conspiratorially, "I've got something to show you."

"You mean.. about…?" Arthur frowned.

"The band." Gilbert's violet-red eyes twinkled. "Exactly."

Arthur stared at him for a second.

"Sure," he said finally. "Why not."

Gilbert grinned. "Awesome."

.

"I'm hoooooome," Gilbert drawled, as he opened the door. He stomped on the mat to shake the snow off his trainers and walked inside easily. Arthur followed him into the flat, feeling suddenly out of place with his ragged punk clothes and bright red hair. The place was nice—not super-nice, but nicer than Arthur's flat. The walls were painted in soothing earthy colors and decorated with the occasional picture frame of Gilbert laughing at the camera, along with a younger, serious-looking blond boy and an older woman who had Gilbert's mischievous smile. Arthur felt a pang of loneliness looking at the photos, and thought of Roma.

"Arthur come on," Gilbert said, his voice drifting from farther inside the flat, and Arthur realized with a jolt that Gilbert had walked on without him. He hurried to join the other boy in the kitchen, where he sat at a table drinking a mug of tea. An older woman—Arthur recognized her from the pictures—stood at the stove, stirring something in a pot. It smelled of beef and carrots and all sorts of things that made Arthur's stomach growl.

"Mum," Gilbert said, hopping off his stool. "This is Arthur. Arthur, this is my mum."

"It's wonderful to meet you," Mrs. Beilschmidt said. She smiled, wiped her hands on the apron, and held a palm out for Arthur to shake. "Gilbert has told me so much about you!"

Arthur self-consciously took her hand, nodded as friendly as he could manage, and sat down. She placed a mug of tea in front of him, and he smiled awkwardly in thanks.

A small boy who Arthur also recognized from the photos walked into the kitchen, the spitting image of innocence and seriousness. His blond hair practically glowed as he looked up at his mother with blue eyes.

"_Mutti_?" he asked. "When will we have dinner? I'm hungry."

"Soon," she said consolingly. "We have guests now, come say hello"

The little boy glanced at Arthur blankly, shrugged, and promptly turned and trotted off. Arthur felt a frown creep onto his face.

"What… what just happened?" he asked.

"That's just Ludwig for you," Gilbert said with a laugh. "Adorable kid."

Arthur, seeing how the boy had just given him the cold shoulder, didn't think Ludwig was as cute as Gilbert gave him credit for. He wasn't about to challenge that, though. It wasn't a good fight to pick, and he'd already got a good idea of what would happen when he picked a fight with Gilbert.

"Gilbert, you and your friend ought to go play some video games to pass the time," Mrs. Beilschmidt said. "Until we have dinner, all right?"

Gilbert shrugged. "Sure. C'mon, Artie."

"don't call me that," Arthur protested, but the other boy had already gotten up and walked off, mug of tea in hand. Arthur sighed, got his own mug, and followed him into the next room, where a PlayStation 2 was set up. Gilbert was crouched in front of the console, fiddling with the buttons and wires that surrounded it. Arthur sat down.

Gilbert looked up. "Do you want to play Rock Band or Halo or what?"

Arthur shrugged. He didn't have video games at home, and he'd never bothered to try the ones Lovino had (as if Lovino would let him near the thing). It was too expensive and Arthur never really had time for that sort of thing.

Gilbert popped one of the disks in the system, and then handed a fake, plastic guitar to Arthur. "Have you ever played rock band before?"

"'Rock Band'?" Arthur wrinkled his nose at the guitar. It was far too light, and there were fake-looking buttons and decorations on it. It was just too… _odd._ Even the strap felt wrong to him.

"The video game," Gilbert explained. "Judging by that expression on your face, I'd say not."

"No, we never were able to afford this kind of thing." Arthur put his fingers awkwardly on the fake fretboard.

"Oh." Gilbert blinked. "Well, my dad used to do this a lot with this sort of thing. Video games, computer games…"

"Used to?"

"Yeah. He… died a couple of years back," Gilbert said quietly. His hands stopped fiddling with the controls. "Pancreatic cancer."

"Oh," Arthur said, taken aback. "I'm sorry. I… I mean, I know how you feel. I lost my mum when I was little. To, uh, sickness."

"I'm sorry," said Gilbert sincerely, and Arthur felt another bond forming with the German boy, a bond that only people who have lose a parent at a young age felt. It was hard to explain, that bond, something of unspoken and deep. Like a deep understanding of the other person that neither of them fully comprehended.

After a brief silence, Gilbert spoke. "I'm sorry for bringing that up," he said, turning back towards the system. "Yes. Okay. Let's play Rock Band."

"Yeah... about that, I still don't really quite… _get it._" Arthur blinked in confusion as Gilbert, laughing manically, hit the start button and brightly colored discs began to move across the screen. "Agggh!" he cried, fumbling with his guitar. "I don't know what's going on!"

Gilbert howled in laughter, still hitting notes easily. "Yess! I'm winning!"

"Shut up!" Arthur said, his eyes fixed on the screen. "You aren't winning!"

That wasn't true. Gilbert had a longer streak of notes and was colleciting al sorts of random bonuses. He was steadily beating Arthur in points, and when the song ended, he was in first place.

"Argh!" Arthur groaned. He fell back onto the couch, fake guitar still slung over his shoulder. "That wasn't fair at _all…_"

"Sure it was," Gilbert grinned and fell back on the couch.

"Shut up," said Arthur, but he was grinning. "I thought it'd be more like actual guitar."

"Aaaaand it's really not?" Gilbert laughed and shrugged.

Arthur yawned. "So what is it that you wanted to show me? Because I get a feeling that it isn't a video game."

Gilbert's eyes lit and he sat straight up. "Oh, yes. Yes yes yes." He disappeared briefly into his room and returned with a neon orange half-sheet of paper. It was just over the size of a postcard with big black letters on it.

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "What's this?"

Gilbert whipped the flyer in Arthur's face. "I, the incredibly awesome Gilbert Beilschimdt," he declared, "have gotten us a _gig!"_

"A what now?" Arthur blinked.

"A gig, you idiot!" Gilbert said, laughing (no doubt at Arthur's face). "A real gig with just us playing and not with the nannies Jager and Sadik either!"

"Really?" Arthur said, and bobbing and weaving, managed to snatch the flyer. "Where's this again? …"

.

"A 'Battle of the Bands'?" Roma read from the flyer. He glanced up at Arthur and Gilbert, who were standing side by side in Roma's living room. "Isn't that a little ambitious for a band like yours?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Gilbert complained. "What, aren't we good enough?"

"No, you guys are pretty good," said the Italian, putting the flyer on the coffee table. "It's just I don't think this is quite your level."

Arthur's mouth dried up. "Really?" he croaked.

"Really."

Silence.

"I'm not trying to discourage you or anything," said Roma, "but if you guys want to do it, then that's your decision. If not, then well, whatever."

There was a sudden knock at the door, and Arthur and Gilbert, who had been standing there, dumbfounded, jumped. Roma stood up. "I'll get that," he said, and left.

Arthur sat down. Hs guitar case, still in hand, thumped on the floor heavily. Gilbert exhaled. They weren't expecting to see Roma return with Mathias Kohler.

Or rather, Mathias Kohler _in those clothes. _

He'd styled his hair in a wild fan as usual, but he'd put in streaks of turquoise blue in to accentuate its paleness. He then had a white T-shirt with a grungy design splashed across the front, along with text that Arthur couldn't read; it was loaded with tons of embellishments and dirty-looking splotches. Arthur thought that maybe it was something in some kind of Nordic languages, because it had a lot of umlauts and letter O's with lines through it. Over that he had bright red and green suspenders attached to dark grape-purple skinny jeans. To top it off, he had a silver dog-tag necklace around his neck and nerd glasses with plastic lenses.

Gilbert stared. Arthur stared.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Gilbert asked, eyes wide.

Mathias looked startled, then broke into a smile. "Oh… you mean, this?"

"Yeah," Gilbert said, with a strange look on his face. "_That."_

"Oh…" Mathias started. "Well, I was starting to think that all my football shirts weren't very drummer-y so I sorta kinda went shopping… Uh," he added nervously. "If that's okay."

Arthur laughed. "No, no, it's great. Now only if we got Gilbert to dress like that too," he said, eyeing Gilbert's saggy jeans and old t-shirt.

"Hey!" the German protested, but he was smiling.

"Okay, you silly boys," Roma said. "If you really want to go through with this, then you're going to need a set list."

Arthur looked up and was reminded of how much he'd really missed the Italian man when he was at SPQR. It wasn't anything mush or sappy like that. There was just this warm, happy, _safe, _feeling that bubbled up inside him whenever he was around Roma. Like nothing bad could ever touch him.

"So what songs do you already know?" asked Roma. He opened a package of biscuits that Arthur swore didn't exist till then, and began chomping away.

"Uh, Gilbert looked at the other boys. "Um… 'Take Me Out' by Franz Ferdinand…?"

"Anything else?" Roma pressed on.

"Er…" the German blinked and scratched his white-blond hair. His reddish eyes flicked towards Arthur. Arthur just shrugged. He didn't have much else to add. Their repertoire was pretty limited.

"How long are you going to be playing?" Roma consulted the flyer again. "What, thirty minutes?"

"Er, yeah." Gilbert again.

"Well, then, you're going to need some new material." Roma reached under the coffee table. "I think these would be good."

A pile of sheet music popped out from nowhere and Arthur took one and read it slowly. "The battle's in two weeks," he said rather uncertainly. "Are you sure we can learn this in that short amount of time?"

"Positive," said Roma, looking into Arthur's eyes.

"Well, yeah, actually," Gilbert said, scanning one of the pieces. "I mean, we've already tried some of these, haven't we?"

"This one looks really hard," Mathias commented, waving a paper covered entirely in ink-black notes. "Really… really hard…"

"Oh, that," Roma said, casually biting into another biscuit. "Well, that one takes practice. You don't actually have to do it."

Mathias put the paper down, still slightly white in the face. "So many notes," he muttered under his breath. "So… so many…"

"_Nonno, nonno!_" cried a familiar voice. "I'm home!"

In bounded Feliciano Vargas, flushed face smiling like always and a thick blue sweater thrown over his shoulders. His hair curl bobbed up and down as he slipped off his shoes and Arthur felt his face laughing slightly; Feliciano always had that bubbly, happy aura about him that made everyone want to smile.

"It's good to see you, Feli," said Roma. "We're just trying to think of a set list for Arthur and his friends here," he began, but was interrupted by Gilbert.

"Bloody hell," he yelled. "Bloody, bloody hell!" And with this he promptly ran up to the little Italian boy—who was looking very confused—and grabbed his cheeks, stretching them until Feliciano's face was deformed severely. He kept stretching them and letting up so that Feliciano's face rather resembled an accordion, and Gilbert the accordion player.

"Ahhhhhh?" Feliciano said through his stretched-out mouth. "Whaaaaaff goin' on?"

"You," Gilbert began, with one of the most un-masculine expressions on his face that Arthur had ever seen, "are so bloody _adorable!_"

Arthur stared. Across from him, seated comfortably on the sofa, a biscuit still in his hand, Roma was in hysterics, spraying little bits of Danish cookies across the room (which, as usual, Arthur ducked to avoid). On the contrary, Mathias looked extremely awkward, staring at Gilbert with a sort of strained, confused amusement. His nerd glasses were still perched on the bridge of his nose, but they kept slipping, and Mathias would often raise a finger to push them up. But in his dumbfounded state at the present he forgot, and they fell of his nose altogether.

Arthur slapped a palm to his face.

When everyone had recovered and Feliciano had retreated to his room to—well, Arthur didn't really know what—they'd all settled down and Roma had asked them one last question.

"All right then," he said, shuffling the sheet music together and putting them away under the coffee table. "What about… a name?"

A heartbeat of silence. "A name?" Mathias echoed blankly.

"Yes. A name. You know, for your band."

More silence.

"Les Beats," said Mathias.

"The Coal Miners," said Gilbert at the same time.

"Fantastik," said Arthur simultaneously.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Roma said. "Okay. How about we… er…"

"Fantastic?" Gilbert said to Arthur, with a raised eyebrow.

"No, 'Fantastik' with a 'k'." Arthur took out a pen and scribbled it on the back of one of the sheet music. "Like this."

"I like that," Mathias said. "It's brilliant. And quirky. And misspelled."

"And not long enough," said Gilbert.

"Who said it had to be more than one word?" said Mathias.

"I dunno, I just don't like it like that."

Arthur thought for a second. "Okay, how about 'Fantastic Boggle Nerds'?"

"I'm not sure if—" Roma began, but he was again cut off by Gilbert.

"Hell yes!" he exclaimed, and exchanged a sloppy high five with Arthur.

"And then we can shorten it to FBN!" Mathias said, matching the German's enthusiasm, and laughed.

"FBN it is!" Roma said, but his voice wobbled a bit uncertainly, and as he wrote it down, Gilbert snickered.

"Very nice," he whispered to the other two boys.

Arthur scoffed good-naturedly. It was going to be a long two weeks.

.

It never really struck Arthur how many wires went into a thirty-minute stage performance until right then.

They were just _all over the floor, _spilling out of boxes, flowing out of plugs, covering every single spare inch of stage. Arthur, walking through the dimly lit space, thought he might trip over one at any moment. The area smelled heavily of alcohol (a smell that always put Arthur on guard) and it was very warm, warm that even though the stage lights weren't at their brightest, he could still feel beads of sweat rolling down his neck and to the collar of his shirt. It was probably a bad idea to wear his tight leather pants and purple jacket but he figured he could just throw his jacket into the crowd during the show.

Around him people were milling around, carrying stage equipment and amps and instruments. Most of them were very tall, very burly people with stubble and tattoos completely covering their arms. They wore bandannas around their foreheads and leather vests and t-shirts. A lot of them were buzzed by the beer; Arthur could see the slightly flushed look that gave them away.

"Oi, Artie," Roma said from across the stage. "You could at least help out here and set up, yes?"

"Right," Arthur said quickly, after seeing Roma's impatient "Come on!" expression. He hurried to lift a pre-amp stacked on top of a normal amp, and Gilbert, on the other side, grunted.

"Is it just me," the German said in a strained voice, "Or do I get the feeling that we're going to lose?"

"You're the one who signed up for this!" Arthur managed to say through the effort of lifting the amps. Barely.

"These people are like, three times our age!" Gilbert groaned. "We're screwed! Going to fail!"

"Don't jinx it," Arthur ground out between his teeth.

"It's true!"

With this they set down the amps and straightened up to help Mathias assemble his drum set.

"I think I'm forgetting all my bass lines already," Gilbert muttered to his band-mates. "It's just trickling away, it is…"

"You think _you've _got it bad," Mathias said darkly. "I feel like I'm going to throw up on my floor toms."

"I still haven't seen my guitar since we got here," Arthur whispered, setting down the crash cymbal. "I swear Lovino stole it or something…"

A brief silence while they worked.

"…yeah, we're going to fail," Gilbert said, half to himself and half to the kick drum.

"No you're not." Roma's face loomed over them, and Mathias gave a great shout, knocking over a cymbal.

"Stop lying, Roma," Arthur said crossly. "I haven't even seen my bloody guitar yet!"

"Oh, that," the Italian said, and produced it, seemingly out of nowhere, with a flourish. He laughed at Arthur's face of shock and shrugged.

"Just wanted to keep it safe for you, is all," he said. He brushed hair off his face and stepped back. "Well, I'm off to the crowd. Best of luck to all three of you!"

"Wait, you're not coming?" asked Arthur.

"I have other business to attend to," Roma said with a wink. "No worries, Jager will be around to give you emotional support."

The three of them blinked confusedly as he walked off, one hand waving to them as he left.

"Well, I think we ought to set this up backstage," Mathias said, "because we really don't need it right now." Arthur followed his gaze to a group of university students dressed in suits walking towards the stage, all of them carrying various-sized equipment and amps.

"Shiiit!" Gilbert groaned as they hurried off the stage. "I thought we were playing first!"

"Apparently not," remarked Arthur dryly.

"What are we playing again? I forgot," Mathias whispered.

Arthur fished a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to him. "Set list," he said to the Dane's confused face. Mathias nodded and pored over it, sticks in hand.

Somehow the first band got set up very quickly and started playing. It was the group of college prats in suits from before, and no matter how stupid they looked, really, they were fantastic. They never rushed and despite their uptight, formal attire, they had energy and charm to their sound. Arthur got a sinking in his gut, a we're-not-going-to-make-it-out-alive feeling, one that confirmed Gilbert's declaration. He could feel the nervousness rattling around in him, his hands shaking like crazy, his knees wobbling. He tried to swallow, but it felt like he was chocking back hairballs.

Evidently the other two felt the same way. Mathias was clutching his drum sticks so hard his knuckles shone white, and he kept swallowing nervously like he was afraid of throwing up on his toms, like he'd said before. Gilbert had sunk to the floor, his head in his hands his pale face paler than pale. He kept muttering little snippets of German mixed with English that didn't seem to make any sense at all.

"Can I see them?" a soft, feminine voice said. It came from over… over somewhere.

"Usually, we don't allow non-performers backstage," said another voice, masculine and deeper. "But… they look like they could use the support."

"Thank you!" said the first voice, and then footsteps. Boots. Like the leather-slouchy boots Elizaveta Hedervary always wore.

"Hey," she said, walking in. Her green eyes blinked in surprise at the three boys. "Oh… are you all right?"

"Scheisse, Scheisse, Scheisse!" Gilbert muttered. "Peanut butter pancakes, ich heisse—" He cut off his stream of nonsense when he saw Elizaveta's curious gaze.

"I'll say no to that," Mathias said tightly. He still looked like he was going to throw up.

Arthur shook his head. He didn't have any objection, either.

The Hungarian girl blinked for several more seconds, then broke out into a grin. "I've got the perfect cure. Do as I do, okay?"

All three of them watching her intently, Elizaveta rolled up the sleeves of her coat and got down on all fours. "Come on," she urged, ignoring Gilbert's rapidly reddening face (his eyes, Arthur noted, were trained on the neckline—the _low _neckline—of her shirt). "On your hands and knees, all of you!"

They did as she told them. It must have been a silly sight, them on hands and knees on the dirty floor backstage. _Because it was._

"Now," she said. "This is a simple drama exercise. I want you to all growl like a rabid dog!"

"What?" Arthur asked.

"That's easy enough for you," Mathias muttered under his breath.

"Do it!" Elizaveta sat back and put her hands on her hips, glaring at them with a look so reminiscent of their extremely strict history teacher that they all tensed up. "Growl!"

"Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" they growled. Arthur felt very ridiculous.

"Louder!" she demanded. "I can't hear you!"

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

"Uh… sirs?" A person with a fancy headset looked in on the group. "Are you ready to go now? Because, uh, we're ready for you."

"What? Oh. Oh, yeah." Gilbert cleared his throat, and (it seemed to Arthur) suppressed a giggle. "Yeah, we're good."

"They're waiting." The fancy-headset guy left.

The three exchanged glances. "Well…" Mathias said. "What do you say we give 'em a show, yeah?"

Arthur laughed, and Gilbert grinned wickedly. "_I _say," the German declared. "We give them a _hell_ of a show!"

"Let's do this!" Arthur agreed, and guitar in hand, his bandmates by his side, he walked on.

It was very tall. Very hot. Very big. Very intimidating. Arthur thought he might fall off the stage any minute; it seemed the world was so unsteady. Or maybe that was just him. The crowd was a huge, faceless monster perched beyond the stage (which really wasn't that tall, looking back in hindsight, but Arthur's vision was warped and weird), waiting anxiously for them to deliver. Arthur's head pounded, his chest was empty and hollow, like his heart was so nervous it was trying to escape. _What I wouldn't do for that, too. To get the hell out of here._

_What's wrong with you? _said another voice in his head. _You want to be here, don't you? You _like_ performing, and you are going to going to go up there and play your bloody heart out, like you do with every single bloody performance._

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Gilbert muttered. "Oh my _god._"

"Smile and nod, just smile and nod," Mathias whispered.

Arthur forced a grin on his face, forced his feet to move, forced his eyes to look at the crowd. A hug black mass of people awaited him. There was chatter, yes, but overall people looked happy and curious. Their eyes, shining red and green from the colored stage lights looked up at the band with interest. Arthur could hear them talking.

"They're so young!"

"The drummer looks faintly sick."

"Do you think they'll be any good at all?"

"Who knows, honestly?"

Mathias sat down—Arthur thought _lucky little ! he gets to sit!—_at his drum set and crossed his sticks. Gilbert tapped the microphone and shrugged to adjust th e bass strap. Arthur swallowed and took his place at the left side of the stage, and tuned his guitar quickly. He took a deep breath, to call his nerves, but if anything, _if anything, _if made the nerves worse. God, he just wanted to be anywhere but here, just run off the stage and go…

Go where? Home? Arthur scoffed. He was home already. Onstage. Lips dry, head throbbing, knees wobbling and blood pounding in adrenaline rush.

"Helloooooooo Liverpool!" Gilbert said into the microphone. The crowd clapped and cheered, and this added fuel to Gilbert's fire. He grinned and laughed.

"Well, first of all, we'd like to thank the wonderful, wonderful people at Mickey's for providing us with this wonderful opportunity. Even though we suck."

Laughter. Arthur had to admit, Gilbert was a natural. His smile, his charm made everyone in the audience laugh… he just had that naturally outgoing aura that drew people to him. Including Arthur. Not that he'd ever admit it.

"We'd also like to thank all the other bands for being so awesome and making us sound like complete rubbish." Gilbert laughed, and so did the audience. "Okay, well without any further ado, our first song!"

Mathias tapped his sticks together four times and started off with the drum intro, quick and upbeat. He stood and felt the beat, nodding his head, feeling it sort of breathe through him, and beside him he heard the German breathe and begin.

"If I retreat…"

Arthur felt this rush, his hands unsure and shaky on its own, as his first entrance loomed closer and closer… It was only five notes, five short and quick and tinkly, but they were notes that led into the rest of the song.

"Make way, we're taking over here!" Gilbert sang into the microphone, and Arthur couldn't agree any more. They were taking over. This was their moment. They were here, they were ready, ready to take over, ready to make this their show. _Set this place on fire!_

The guitar was white-hot electric and on it, his fingers worked the steel strings, lick for lick, and he spun to the song. It flowed through his limbs and his brain, cold and energizing against his skin, but hot and electrifying at the same time. It was a peculiar feeling, but he couldn't get enough of it; he was addicted to it, to all of it, the bright lights and the roar of the crowd and high-pitched voice of the guitar, the sheer rush of adrenaline in his chest. It was better than anything, better than any high that Rhys could ever reach, better than alcohol or drugs or anything. Arthur didn't need pills. This, _this _was his drug.

"_Let's kill tonight, kill tonight, show them all you're not the ordinary type…_"

.

Gilbert was laughing as he walked off the stage, thanking the crowd and bass in hand.

"Awesome!" he said. "Pure, undiluted awesome!"

Arthur himself felt as giddy as his dormmate, his heart still pounding inside him. Everything was clearer and brighter, and he couldn't resist smiling. He couldn't disagree, either.

"Wotcher!" Roma exclaimed as they walked up to him. The Italian hugged Arthur briefly (causing the Brit to turn redder than he already was), clapped Gilbert and Mathias both on the back and then leaned back, a mockingly stern look in his eye. "Now go clean up; there are bands coming after you and you ought to respect them by clearing out."

"Yes, sir," said Mathias with a straight face, and laughing, they went to get their amps.

The band setting up next was very nice to them. They were about the same age as the first group, except they dressed more like normal people, with jeans and t-shirts. The oldest one honestly didn't look much older than twenty-five, with brown hair that flopped over onto his forehead. He somehow ended up working alongside Arthur in setup.

"You've got talent," he said, his brown eyes warm and kind.

Arthur ducked his head to hide his smile. "Thank you."

"No problem," replied the other bloke, and he proceeded to disassemble Mathias's snare from its stand.

The bubble of happiness burst when they finished packing away of the guitar cables. Not that their packing away annoyed Arthur at all. He was actually relieved to have been done with the clear out—cables were irritating to wind up. No, what burst his bubble was a very loud and obnoxious voice of a sixteen-year-old boy with thick eyebrows, green eyes and auburn hair.

"Oh, no," Arthur murmured. The horror was slow to come, but it was sinking in, and it was sinking in hard.

"What is it?" asked Mathias.

"He's going to _kill me, _he's going to bloody _kill _me," Arthur said, his voice barely more than terrified croaks.

"What?" pressed Gilbert.

Arthur swallowed and looked pointedly at his older brother of two years. The brother he hated the most.

Ian Kirkland was sitting in a crowd of people that were all about the same age as he, and all of them were wearing the same kinds of clothes: a roughly worn wifebeater stained with dirt, dark jeans and some sort of jacket, whether it was a bomber jacket or leather jacket or something else. Ian himself had a fitted denim jacket with sleeves rolled up and collar popped to frame his face. In on hand he had a cigarette and in the other a bottle of scotch. His face was twisted in amusement, as it always seemed to be nowadays. He stood casually, leaning against a wall and talking to some girl.

Arthur ducked behind Mathias's tall frame and hoped to god or whatever deity was up there that Ian wouldn't turn to look at him—

No, it was too late. Ian's eyes had caught sight of his brother, and they'd lit up with a malice that Arthur was all too familiar with. A hand beckoned him to come closer. A sneer scared him away. The blond boy swallowed and herded his bandmates away from Ian, still shaken and quivery. The giddy, happy, bubbly joy was gone now, replaced with dread.

"Who was that?" Gilbert said anxiously as they kept walking.

"My—my brother," Arthur said tightly, but his voice jumped an octave. Gilbert snickered, much to his annoyance, but Mathias was sensitive enough to ignore it.

"Your older brother?" the Dane asked.

"Yes. Ian." Arthur pressed his lips together, but then he ran into someone, someone who smelled like Drakkar Noir. He gagged and looked up slightly. That was a bad move. He could literally feel his face turn white.

"Hello, Artiekins," sneered Ian.

Arthur still tightlipped with shock and horror, said nothing. Gilbert next to him seemed to tense up.

"I saw you up there onstage." Ian jerked his head. "D'you want to know what I think?"

Gilbert opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but a warning glance from Mathias cut his voice off. Arthur swallowed bitterly and waited.

Ian leaned in close enough that Arthur could smell weed on his breath. Arthur had to fight the screaming urge to move. Whether it was to run or to hit Ian (something he'd never been able to work up to) he didn't know, but it took every bit of self-control for him to not move.

"You," Ian said slowly, "suck."

Arthur said nothing. He couldn't' say anything. He was barely aware of Gilbert trying to escape Mathias's grip; his throat had closed up and his tongue had turned into lead.

"What could you possibly hope to accomplish by being in a band that _sucks? _You won't amount to anything!" Ian laughed. "There's my two cents. I'm off now… I've got women waiting for me, see."

And with one last sneer he disappeared.

The words echoed in Arthur's head emptily. _Never amount to anything, never… amount.. sucks, you suck… a _band _that sucks… never amount to anything…_

"Arthur?" Roma's voice floated out of nowhere. He couldn't hear except for the words in his head, echoing over and over again. God Ian was right. What was he doing, starting a band with two other people who barely knew how to play their instruments? The music in him had been silent since the month had started, and he hadn't written a song in forever. At this rate he wasn't going to. Like he was never going to achieve fame, like he was never going to fulfill that vision of glory from that adrenaline-shot night, he was never going to amount to anything; he was a waste of space, a waste of time, a waste of breath—

"Arthur!" and suddenly there was a warm, firm hand on his shoulder. "Arthur, snap out of it!"

The Brit turned to see Roma, and his insecurities broke. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a faint croak.

"Hey, it's fine, it's fine…" the Italian said. "Let's go.

Arthur's emotions crashed around in his stomach, stabbing his insides over and over again… no, not even Roma's arm around him would stop that.

"Tell me what's wrong. Really."

Arthur blinked blankly to Roma's gaze and said nothing.

"Arthur."

"He said… he said that we sucked," Arthur said quietly. "I was… never going to amount to anything."

The Italian man was speechless for a minute. "Oh, Arthur," he said finally, and gave his protégé in a bone-crushing hug. They stayed like that for a minute or two, Arthur's stress and worthlessness melting away in the arms of the only father he'd ever known.

"I'm sure you did fine, Arthur," Roma said. "That performance there, that was brilliant. You were wonderful, Mathias was on the beat, and Gilbert's voice was brilliant. That performance was _magic._"

And Arthur believed him. Roma believed in him, so he believed in him. Anything that came out of that mouth was true.

Except then they found out their place.

They didn't place first.

Not second.

Not even third.

In fact, Fantastic Boggle Nerds didn't place at all.

.

**Author's note~**

I'm sorry this was so late! . School hates me. Let's put it that way. And also, we're moving into our new house so no computer for the moment. I've had to type at least 40% of this chapter at school… _I'm at school right now. Agghg!_

This, unfortunately, means slower updates. Hopefully this long, 7160-word chapter made up for the intermission. The next chapter won't be too long, I think so I'll try and get it up quickly, promise on Iggy's brows XD

**It's actually better if you follow me on tumblr** (thelastfortyfeet dot tumblr dot com) because 1) I tend to update earlier there than on Fanfiction, 2) I put previews there sometimes and 3) I put doodles of Arthur and crew there sometimes too. So … extra bonus stuff, find me on tumblr. Yeah /sweatdrop

The song they're playing is "Let's Kill Tonight" by Panic! At the Disco. I'm not sure if they're known at all in the UK but it is a _damn good song! _


	6. staging a comeback

_6. staging a comeback_

On New Year's, the day before Arthur was to depart for SPQR again, he went to the cemetery and visited his mum's grave.

He carried a couple of peonies in a parcel, and when he got off the bus, he took the peonies with him and into the cemetery.

Her headstone was not a particularly elaborate thing. It was a simply cute block of granite stone with elegant black letters that had her name on there—_Diana Kirkland: loving wife and mother. _Beneath that were birth and death dates. And still beneath that there was a quote: "_Lights will guide you home._"

It was her favourite song. Arthur remembered her playing in their old, disused piano and singing in her light clear voice. The sheer memory made Arthur's throat close up, and he bit his lip at the suddenly vivid images of her, of her just _being_, at that heartbreaking sweetness. His knees gave out by themselves, and there he was, on his knees, in front of his mother's grave. He unwrapped the parcel and laid the peonies in front of the headstone, right underneath the quote.

For the longest time he simply sat there, thinking, thinking about his mother's safe embrace, thinking about her laugh and her smile and her soothing, comforting voice, thinking about the warm smell of lavender that he hazily remembered always wreathed around her. Thinking and breathing and missing her.

When his throat didn't feel as choked up as before, he opened his mouth and spoke.

"Hi, Mum. How're you doing?"

Only a faint breeze answered him, and Arthur, though he was never one for the metaphysical, took this as a sign, that she was listening and loved him too. He folded his hands and kept talking.

"I'm sorry if I haven't talked much to you recently. I've… been rather busy and I go to school in London now. Can you believe it? I can't either." He chuckled briefly. "And I've got a band, too, with two other blokes and they're pretty good. Gilbert sings—he used to really annoy me, but we're getting along better now. And Mathias plays drums. I think his dad is from Denmark so that's why his last name's kind of odd. And," he sighed, "I don't know. Gilbert signed us up for this battle of the bands, and—and I saw Ian there, and then we came in last in the competition…"

He hated how right then he could feel the vague tickling in the back of his eyes that signified that tears were coming soon, trembling on the threshold of his lips and eyes and nose. "Mum," he said hoarsely. "I—I don't know what I'm doing… I don't know if this is even right. We—our band, we're downright horrible and I don't know what I was thinking when I formed it. Am I on the right path? I"—his voice cracked slightly—"I'm just so… lost."

He was trying hard to resist crying but it wasn't good enough. He wanted so badly for his mum to be alive for her to hug him and tell him that it was going to be fine, that he was fine. He _needed _that comfort, her sweet soap and soft, warm smile. Roma had gone up to Glasgow at the moment for business, and Arthur hadn't talked to him, not like this, not in a while. Arthur was alone. As alone as he'd always been. Talking to his dead mum wasn't going to do anything.

The winter breeze picked up again, and as Arthur reached up to adjust his scarf, he thought for a second—_just for a second—_he could smell a faint trace of lavender…

The tears kept streaming down his face, but now, instead of pain, they were tears of bittersweet longing and love.

"I love you too, Mum," he whispered. "Happy New Year."

.

"Kirkland, are you all right?" Arthur looked up to see Gilbert putting on a hat, even as they were heading indoors towards their dorm. It was still cold outside, though they were in London, at SPQR, but not as cold as it would have been. Not cold enough for a hat, either.

"I'm fine," Arthur managed. He shrugged to adjust his bag as they headed inside Eckland Residence Hall.

"You're not still depressed over what happened on holiday, are you?" Gilbert asked. He unlocked their dorm room and they both staggered inside, tired and weary.

"No, I'm not." Arthur said, flopping down onto his bed. "I'm just… argh, I dunno."

"Dead right," Gilbert said. "Actually, I'm still kind of annoyed about that… It's just, we played the best we'd ever done and we end up _last."_

"No need to relive that," Arthur said into his sheets. He decided not to voice his growing uncertainty about forming the band… they weren't ever going to _go _anywhere, so why bother? _Talent is only that if you leave it at that—talent._

"…and it's not like we'll ever be any good, anyway," Gilbert said, still rambling, and Arthur blinked open his eyes, trying not to fall asleep. Sometimes his roommate would spend hours just talking—sometimes gossip, sometimes philosophy, sometimes history (somehow Gilbert knew a lot about the history of Prussia, a country that didn't even exist anymore). And then sometimes they would be random musings, like right then.

"Dead right," Gilbert said absently. "We won't ever get a record deal and a real live world-wide tour and sold-out concerts packed with thousands of screaming fans…"

The German boy sighed, thinking distantly of dreams of fame and glory. Arthur yawned and closed his eyes. _Now maybe I can sleep._

The door to their dorm flew open in the middle of the depressing mull of things, and Gilbert let out a shout of surprise, which was drowned out by the voice of a very angry Dane.

"_What the fuck are you two aresholes doing?_"Mathias screamed. "Weren't we going to practice today? Huh? _Huh?_"

Arthur groaned. "That was _before _we made bloody fools of ourselves."

"What, at the Battle of the Bands?" Mathias threw his words at them, and they stung sharply on Arthur's ears. "Who the hell are you kidding? _That _wasn't failure. _That _was an opportunity for us to try harder. _That_ is our motivation. But this, _this,_" he said, gesturing at Arthur and Gilbert lying pathetically on their beds, "_this _is failure. I don't know what the hell you both are doing, faffing about and being a pair of sulky and disgusting …lowlifes!" He spat the last word at the floor.

Arthur sat up and stared.

"Just because we lost to a bunch of people twice our age doesn't mean we _stink_," Mathias continued. "It wasn't our day—and _I mean it,_" he said, looking at Gilbert, who was poised to say something. "The only way we're going to be able to make it is if we _never stop trying. _So get your lazy arses off those beds and let's _go._"

Arthur and Gilbert looked at each other and then looked at Mathias, standing in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, eyes bright and face feverishly flushed. He was gripping his drumsticks with a very intense sort of strength that Arthur didn't know existed, and his usually perfectly gelled hair was falling into his face, little strands here and there.

Gilbert grunted and yanked his hair. "_Gott, _you're right." He proceeded to rub his eyes. "What were we doing?"

Arthur scratched his cheek. "You're right." He slid off the bed.

The music hit him tremendously right then, a simple, low bass line. Just low E notes, hitting straight on the moderate tempo, octave after octave repeating steadily. Then the drums, upbeat with lots of clash to add flair. Then the guitar, a winding riff that rose and spun and fell, vibrating all the way… It was very classic rock and roll, sexy and alluring and catchy, Arthur could close his eyes and hear Gilbert's soft, breathy vocals on top… He could feel his head nodding along to it already, his foot taping a steady four-beat rhythm from the drums. _This is it._

Gilbert and Mathias had been staring at him before Arthur blinked and looked up at them. They were watching him with a certain kind of reverence, along with severe confusion.

"What's going on?" Gilbert asked.

Arthur smiled, fumbled for a notebook and a pen, and opened it. The music flowed from his fingers to the page, leaving smooth trails of ink in its wake, and it felt so, so good to write again, to make something that was _his._

"A new song," he murmured as he rushed to write it down; it kept tumbling inside of his head, faster than his hands could move. He couldn't lose it now. He kept writing.

"A new song?" Mathias asked dumbly.

"A song… we won't fail. Not with this," Arthur told them.

"_We won't fail!"_

.

It didn't take them long to get it. Gilbert still flubbed the lyrics from time to time, but it was perfect. Just dead _perfect. _In fact, Arthur had the song stuck in his head as he walked across campus, his hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers. He turned into the arts building and strode on.

His path took him past a ginormous bulletin where notices of all sorts were posted. Usually he walked right past it, but a coloured piece of paper caught his attention. He stopped, backtracked, and took a closer look.

In big letters it announced the "School Talent Show." Below it were dates and times for the show and also times for auditions. The auditions were all in April, and the show was in May. Arthur stared at it for a minute, his mind processing the information. Then he snorted, and a couple of girls across the (sixth form, by the looks of it) glanced over with curiosity. He shot them a "fuck off" grin and they turned around, muttering irritated remarks. Arthur turned his attention back to the flyer. _A silly notion, _he thought.

School talent show. A silly notion indeed. Arthur was still laughing to himself as he climbed up the stairwell. Performing for the proletariat student body—they probably wouldn't appreciate the music (or so he thought).

"Hello, Arthur," Mathias said cheerfully as Arthur reached the perpetually abandoned third-floor practice room. "Ready to practice?"

"Yeah," said Arthur, setting his guitar down. "Where's Gilbert?"

"Dunno," said the Dane, twirling his drumsticks between his fingers. Arthur slapped his palm to his face. It seemed that even though it was only two weeks after holidays had ended, Sadik had managed to teach Mathias how to twirl his drumsticks. As entertaining as it looked, it sometimes distracted Gilbert whenever he turned his back to the audience ("for effect!" as the German always said). Arthur had tried to get the two of them to stop it, but so far neither of the boys had budged in their habits.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Gilbert stumbled in, not looking very sorry at all. In fact, he looked extremely happy: flushed with shining eyes and messy hair and dishevelled blazer and tie. He couldn't stop grinning and kept running his hands through his hair.

Arthur blinked. "What happened to you?"

Gilbert shrugged, still grinning. "Nothing happened," he said in a voice that suggested otherwise.

Mathias put a hand to his chin. "No, no, something's up with you," he said, his blue eyes studying Gilbert carefully.

"Hey, hey, hey," the German boy said, laughing nervously. "No need for the Inquisition, all right?"

Arthur furrowed his brows together. There was certainly something different about Gilbert. Something… maybe it was the hair? Or that little glob of something on his mouth, it looked vaguely shiny and sparkly… Arthur made a face. _Sparkly?_

"I got it!" Mathias laughed and pointed. "You still got some of that lip gloss rubbish on your mouth, mate!"

"What?" Gilbert slapped his hand to his mouth as Mathias leaned in and cocked an eyebrow conspiratorially.

"From snogging," he said, unable to contain the grin on his face.

"Oh god," Arthur groaned, leaning his head against the wall. "You can't be serious."

"I'm not; I wasn't snogging," said Gilbert with a completely straight face, sparkles gone from his mouth, but Mathias shook his head.

"Now, now, Gilbert," he chastised playfully. "You mustn't tell lies. Now tell us who the lucky one was!"

"There was no one!" Gilbert protested, but Mathias caught him in a headlock and laugh.

"Tellll usssssss," said Mathias. "Telllllllll!"

"Aggghgffff—okay!" Gilbert gasped, still stuck in a headlock. Mathias released him and he coughed out one name.

"Okay, it was Elizaveta. Yanno, the keyboardist."

Arthur's jaw dropped. "_What?"_

Mathias chortled again. "You fucking with us?"

"God, not after that headlock," Gilbert moaned, rubbing his neck. "No, for real. No kidding."

"_Elizaveta?_" Arthur said incredulously. "I didn't even think she _liked _you at all…"

"You thought _wrong, _mate," Gilbert said, smirking. "Lizzie and I _definitely _snogged."

Mathias scratched his head. "That's crazy, mate. I can't even process that at all. Dude, I thought she hated you. Which reminds me—why was she in Liverpool over winter holiday?"

"Dunno," said Gilbert, shrugging.

Arthur cleared his throat. "So, how about we actually get practicing? Okay?"

Mathias yawned. "Yeah, yeah, sure."

Gilbert picked up his bass and slung it over his shoulder. "Yeah, let's get going."

They plugged in their instruments. Mathias tapped their sticks together four times, and they launched into their song.

It was just a cover, really, but a bloody good cover. Today, they'd managed to haul some amps inside the room, so the guitar sounded properly gritty and soulful, albeit turned down to a low volume. Mathias had also swiped some spare toms from one of the store rooms, so instead of tapping on the brick wall he was using proper drums. In all of it, somehow, somehow the magic worked its way into the practice and they pushed through the song steadily, from Arthur's first chord, a lonely C minor chord to Gilbert's first breath of vocals, to Mathias's thirty-two counts of fills—though it didn't seem like Mathias hated having to count all thirty-two beats; he dead _loved _this song; Arthur could tell from the heart with which the Dane played. As for Arthur, well, his hands just knew instinctively what to do, it came so incredibly _naturally _and without knowing how it started or when it started, he was rocking to the song, tossing his head back and forth and spinning around on one foot and lifting his guitar and throwing it down with every strum. God it was _incredible _and no one could take that away from him…

They finished, breathing hard. Very hard. Mathias looked completely spent, Gilbert about to fall over, but they were both grinning. Arthur could feel his cheeks throbbing; his face was smiling so hard. They were all high on endorphins and all very spent. It wasn't even a real performance, really, but what Mathias had said the other day before, it'd seemed to click with all of them. Arthur felt like he was doing something right, finally. Standing there, grinning with his bandmates, he had no regrets. He could taste it. When they were brought together, there was something fresh and new and magical and miraculous and amazing and there was no doubt that _they were going to change the world someday._

Then, out of nowhere, sounding a bit like muffled gunshots, came applause. The slow, approving claps of just one person. It didn't burst their bubble of sheer happiness, but it was surprising all the same. Arthur exchanged glances with the other two boys and turned towards the doorway.

A boy was standing there. Arthur vaguely recognized him from his chemistry class. He had blond hair, but a darker blond than either Mathias or Gilbert had, a dirty blond. It was parted on the right, and was straight, tousled and messy. He had bold, blue eyes, glasses that sat crooked on his nose, and a tall, strong build. He wasn't wearing a blazer, but had a sweater vest and a bomber jacket thrown over it, brown, with a little star logo on the chest.

"Dude," the boy exclaimed in an American accent. "You guys are _good!"_

The three boys exchanged glances.

"Well," Gilbert began, popping up the collar of his shirt. "Thank you. Thank you very much."

"Dude," said the boy again. "Do you guys, like, do shows? Or anything like that? 'Cause yanno, Antonio's birthday's coming up soon and we're throwing this huge bash at our dorm hall, and dude, could you play for us? You guys would be _awesome._"

At that Arthur exchanged another glance with Mathias, who only shrugged. A birthday party? Arthur wasn't too keen to be playing at a _birthday party_, of all things, let alone a party thrown in the honour of someone he'd really barely talked to at all. God, what would they play? It would be a disaster. Arthur could see it already.

Gilbert, on the other hand, wasn't thinking about that. "_Antonio's _birthday?" he said, his voice jumping two octaves. "Shit, shit, shit, I still have to find him a present, _verdammt!_" He bonked himself in the head with the headstock of his bass, which Arthur, as usual, cringed at.

"Your playing there could be his present," said the American. "Dude, you have to, please please do it?"

Mathias shrugged again, as if to say "I'm just the drummer, don't mind me," and looked at Arthur.

Arthur quirked one corner of his mouth. They were desperate for gigs, he mused, and they hadn't exactly played at their usual place with Jager, Sadik, and Elizaveta in a while (especially since Elizaveta was busy snogging Gilbert, he added grudgingly). Something like they were over in Amsterdam doing business. (_Sure._) But Arthur needed _so badly_ that rush again, that fantastic rush of performing… and there was just something about what Alfred said to them, how he said it to them. It almost reminded Arthur of that one song… How did it go again? He found the chords almost automatically and strummed. _Please, please me…_

Arthur nodded slowly. Then he looked up into Arthur's eyes and asked, "So when is the gig again?"

.

Somehow, in the course of a couple of weeks (from the day Alfred F. Jones the American asked them to play to the actual date of the party), word spread around SPQR that a rock band was going to play at Antonio's birthday party. It had gotten so exaggerated that once Arthur heard that the Arctic Monkeys themselves were going to come and play at the party. Arthur and Gilbert laughed hysterically at these rumours, and compared FBN's sad, sad abilities to that of the Arctic Monkeys. It didn't quite match up.

On the day of the party, which happened to take place on a Saturday, Mathias swiped some toms from the store rooms, and Arthur and Gilbert dragged the amps all the way from their closet in Eckland to the Cooper Residence hall. They got there to find a small crowd of people already milling around with red plastic cups (at this Arthur groaned inwardly; he had better things to do than play for a bunch of drunk teenage idiots) and some mainstream top-forty rubbish was playing.

As soon as they set foot inside, Alfred made an instant beeline for them. "Great, you guys are here!" he babbled. "Can you guys set up over there?" He pointed to a corner with virtually no room.

Gilbert blinked. "_There?"_ he said, distaste obvious in his voice.

"Is that bad?" Alfred crinkled his eyebrows.

Arthur couldn't help but to quirk a half-smile. "No, we're going to need some more room than that. Mathias's drum kit is rather big," he told the American, who turned red and began apologizing profusely (which included two cups of booze, one for each of them. Arthur turned his nose up at his, dismayed that his peers would take up the "national pastime" at such an early age, and gave it to Gilbert. The German-bred boy didn't seem to be affected by either cups of beer).

In the end they set up in one of the back common rooms—it was nicely furnished, but not as nicely as Eckland was, Arthur would say. On the whole, though, it was very nice and very modern, and the acoustics weren't half-bad, so when Mathias arrived, they set about putting everything where they ought to be. Then one of the third-years, a boy with straight blond hair, glasses, and smart, goody-two-shoes look, did some technology magic so that their sound echoed through the loudspeakers installed in the building. Gilbert thought it was absolutely great; Arthur just wondered if they'd be able to pull it off without any of the teachers giving out detentions.

Even so, by the time they were all ready to go, a small crowd of people had gathered in the room, talking enthusiastically and eyeing the three boys with interest. Arthur slung his guitar over his shoulder and glanced over at the other two members of Fantastic Boggle Nerds. "So, er," he stammered, well aware of Alfred's intense gaze on him. "What should we play?"

Mathias shrugged. "Do you think we could throw out the set that we did for the Battle?"

Gilbert cringed. "Are you _really _sure about that? Every one of those songs has been ruined for me because of that thing."

"I agree," said Arthur, frowning. "I really don't want to be reminded of the Battle."

"Then what?" Mathias asked.

"First of all, why are we even discussing this, for one?" Arthur shot back. "We look like bloody idiots, talking right now!"

"Everyone here is bloody idiotic anyway, so we _blend in,_" whispered Mathias, cautiously watching the anxious crowd. "It really doesn't matter."

"Is there something wrong?" Alfred appeared behind Arthur, making the Brit jump. His blue eyes were wide and concerned.

"Urkff—I mean, yeah, no, we're totally great," Arthur babbled, and then fell over very hard on his behind. Gilbert, as usual, snickered.

"We're having trouble about what to play," Mathias said.

Arthur closed his eyes and imagined slamming his head down on his guitar very, very hard. _Idiots! I'm surrounded by idiots!_

"Shouldn't you have figured that out before this?" Alfred asked. His face was twisted into a confused expression. "I mean, you had two weeks."

"We _fail…._" Gilbert groaned, half-laughing for no reason.

"We do," agreed Mathias glumly. He stood up and poked Arthur in the face with his drumstick. "Hey, Artie, you okay?"

Arthur grimaced and sat up. "I'm fine," he grumbled, still slightly annoyed about falling down in front of Al—_a whole crowd of people. _He fell down in front of a _whole crowd of people._

"Why don't you guys just play that one song that you were playing when I walked in your practice?" Alfred suggested, and Mathias poked his forehead with his drumstick.

"Dammit! The obvious solution!" he said.

"Provided I don't flub the lyrics, sure," said Gilbert.

Arthur stood up, tuned his guitar briefly, and then looked at Mathias. "Let's do this."

Four taps and there was that C minor chord again, with the soft tinkling of the hi-hats in the background. Then Gilbert with his bass, providing the core and centre of the song. Arthur shifted his fingers higher for the high notes, his still-red-dyed fringe brushing his forehead as he watched the fretboard, watching his hands move to each chord.

"_A cloud hangs over this city by the sea…_"

Time flew and before they knew it, they'd passed the first verse, the second verse, the long drum fill and the guitar solo—the song ended on a rest, so Gilbert's voice echoed emptily into the roar of the crowd. Arthur, breathing hard, looked out into the room. It seemed as if more and more people had been drawn to the back commons area where they were playing, until everyone in the party had been packed into that room, yelling and cheering them on.

Arthur grinned, looked over at his bandmates and laughed. Mathias grinned back, got up from his stool, and joined Gilbert and Arthur at the front of the makeshift stage. They bowed, the crowd still clapping and stomping and screaming.

Gilbert grabbed the microphone he had been singing in. "Thank you!" he yelled. Arthur did the same, still oddly happy. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that a pair of sky-blue eyes had caught his gaze. No, it was definitely the adrenaline.

"Yes," chimed in a new voice, magnified by a megaphone and definitely not a teenage voice. "Thank _you_."

And in walked their chemistry teacher, a disapproving look in her eyes.

.

"I hate detention," grumbled Gilbert.

Arthur nodded. There were certainly other places that he could better stand to be in than in Mrs. Bradley's classroom at (he check the clock) six-twenty-four in the evening, pulling fat and other rubbish off the cows' eyes. Firstly, the stench was absolutely unbearable, pungent and foul and raw all at once. (And they didn't have gas masks either.) Secondly, the eyes weren't something that Arthur liked looking at. Instead of white and brown and whatever colour that eyes really ought to be, they were fatty yellow and disgusting tan and fleshy pink. His skin crawled under the latex gloves. It felt like his fingers were getting soaked with the preservative liquids, but the last time he checked, they weren't.

"I can't believe we have to _do _this," complained Mathias. "I _hate_ biology."

"Anatomy, you mean?" Arthur chucked another fat-free eye into the tub.

"Whatever. Gimme the scissors." Arthur handed them to the Dane, and Mathias used them to yank another piece of fat viciously from the eye. "I'm really more of a physics person. Those planet-looking things—"

"Atoms," Arthur said. "Specifically the Bohr model of atoms, which is dismissed today due to its fixed electron orbits."

"Shut up," said Mathias. "Since when do you actually pay any attention in chemistry class?"

"Since I don't fall asleep while Bradley's lecturing, that's what," Arthur retorted, and Mathias snorted.

"So where _is _Bradley?" asked Gilbert.

"Dunno," said Arthur. "Guess she stepped out."

"Good," said Mathias, and he peeled off one glove.

"What are you doing?" hissed Gilbert, watching the Dane fumble with his pockets.

"Checking Twitter," Mathias hissed back. He pressed a button and the screen of his mobile lit up.

Arthur shrugged and continued clearing away rubbish from the eye he was holding. Twitter was absolutely useless and he didn't bother with it. He didn't use the computer often enough, either, and though Roma had told him that his phone could use the internet, he wasn't exactly sure what to do with it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gilbert lean over to look at the small screen of Mathias's phone. "Why are you checking _Twitter?_" the German asked, bewilderment evident in his voice.

A short chuckle from Mathias answered him. The Dane turned the phone to show Gilbert and Arthur. "_This,_" he said.

Gilbert's jaw dropped. "Bloody hell!"

Arthur turned to look at Mathias's phone.

**DanishPastry: **fun show last night! except for the detention, of course :/

"That's me, by the way," Mathias said. "Heh, heh. 'DanishPastry.'"

Arthur sighed, and briefly considered banging his head on the lab table, if it were not covered in cow eye rubbish and preservatives. _Only he would come up with that stupid of a name._

"Damn," Gilbert said. Arthur hastened to look at the other tweets—and nearly dropped the cow eye he was holding.

**thelandofoz: **amazing amazing birthday party! tony is a lucky mate to have such a great rock band to play at his party! :)

**captain_america: DanishPastry **damn you guys were awsome! thx so much for playing! :D

**afctomato: **best birthday ever! gracias, fbn :D

**ladybella: **fbn, u were so great! can't wait to hear more from u 3

**tino_v: DanishPastry **that was so brilliant! keep playing :)

**liz_hedervary: DanishPastry **great show! you and arthur and gilbert were all brilliant! 3

The Brit widened his eyes slightly at the one tweet at the bottom, and frowned slightly.

**bonnefoy714: DanishPastry **encore! :)

_Argggh. _What was he thinking? It was just one little annoying tweet from an annoying little frog. No need to get all riled up about it… _dead right._

"Bloody hell!" Gilbert said, his finger reaching out to scroll down the page. "We're… _famous!"_

"Hey, hey, hey!" Mathias jerked the phone away from Gilbert's still-gloved and fat-caked hand. "No touching my phone! Especially with that nasty rubbish all over your hands."

"But we're _famous!_" Gilbert protested, but he peeled of his glove anyway and snatched the phone away.

Arthur couldn't resist a small smile. _They were famous._

For now.

* * *

><p><strong>author's note~<strong>

A turn for the exceptionally mundane! Ahaha. Slowly weaving in some of my fave pairings—did you spot them? XD (Well, I'm not entirely partial to USUK but it still makes a good complex plot element, lol.) I apologize for any inaccuracies regarding Twitter, because even though I have one I never use it, so I don't know anything about it really. ^_^; Hopefully you can figure out who's who from the names… Bonus points to whoever gets the first one ;)

Songs featured: "Fix You" by Coldplay; "Anna Molly" by Incubus.

(I feel like "Fix You" is overused in a sense, but it is _**so **_fitting in this case… ;u;)

Next chapter should be a lot of fun so please look forward to it! Love you all *heart*

(Psssst, Rain, Parmesan: DID YOU SEE THE COW EYES REFERENCE? Memories, memories xD)


	7. adventures in deutschland pt I

_7. adventures in deutschland, pt 1_

"Hi, Arthur," giggled an Asian girl with a pretty pink flower in her hair and a shy smile. She wiggled her fingers at him and smiled.

Arthur raised an eyebrow and a corner of his mouth in response. "Hello," he said back to her—he would never admit it but he didn't honestly know her name. Being popular was still sort of new to him, though it wasn't like he didn't like it. It was just... weird.

Gilbert was definitely enjoying it, though. As Arthur walked down the hall, he could see the German boy surrounded by a crowd of people, all trying to talk to him at once. Gilbert himself was laughing hysterically in the middle, his friends Francis and Antonio by his side. Francis looked up and caught Arthur's eye.

Arthur felt his cheeks warm slightly and quickly turned his gaze away from the French boy. He wasn't about to distract himself with any stupid frogs, especially when now the music was speaking him louder and clearer than ever. It was like that performance at Antonio's birthday party had unlocked songs hidden in his brain that he hadn't known before. Yeah, there were better things to think about than that bloody frog.

_Well, _Arthur thought as he stepped into his history classroom, _maybe with the exception of history. _It wasn't better by much, but he still had to remember it. For now it was the World Wars that he had to know, along with terms like 'Western Front' and 'Holocaust.' And, well, horrible as they were, Arthur could honestly are less. It was too depressing and too dark to think about, let alone learn about.

He dropped his bag onto the floor near a desk and sat down. Today he wasn't expecting much, as they'd just had a test the class before, and weren't due to start the next unit for a week. So Arthur was slightly annoyed when their teacher, Mr. Stearns, wrote in big letters 'BERLIN' on their blackboard. Arthur braced himself for another hour-long lecture, but when Stearns began passing out handouts (something he didn't usually do), Arthur paid attention. In fact, Mathias walked in to see Arthur fixated on the sheet of paper.

"What's going on?" the drummer asked.

Arthur looked up, feeling kind of misty and vague, and pointed to the paper.

"Class trip to Berlin," he said hoarsely.

.

"Berlin? Seriously?" Gilbert simultaneously snatched the handout from Arthur and shoved a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. "Bloody hell, that's awesome!"

"I _know,_" Arthur groaned, pushing the pasta on his plate around. He propped his head up on one elbow and sighed. "I wish I could go."

Mathias and Gilbert froze and looked at him. "What do you mean, you wish you could go?" asked Mathias slowly. "Aren't you going?"

"No," Arthur mumbled, studying his pasta. "I haven't got the money."

"Whaa?" Gilbert consulted the handout. "It's really not _that_ expensive, is it?"

"Not really," said Arthur. "But well, I'm here on scholarship. So other than anything here, I can't really pay for it."

There was an awkward silence. Gilbert slowly put another spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

"I could have my parents pay for you," Mathias suggested, and Arthur shook his head.

"That's silly," he muttered.

Mathias bit his lip and blinked. Arthur could see the concern in his face and a little part of him felt glad that he had good friends like him around to feel genuinely worried for him. But then again, Arthur preferred to be self-sufficient.

"So what are you going to do?" asked Gilbert. "I mean, I'm going, Mattie's going"—Mathias nodded vaguely—"and well, we—FBN—we have to go! Berlin is my homeland!" He spread his arms out to show it, spoon still in hand.

Mathias laughed. "Really?" he asked a little sceptically.

"Dead right!" Gilbert leaned forward. "I mean, I was born in Liverpool and blah, blah, blah, but my family's from Germany! Our lineage goes back all the way to the nobles in the court of King Friedrich the Great! And my _Oma_ lives there, so I go visit her about every summer," he added, shrugging. Mathias sighed.

"That's all nice and everything," said Arthur. "But it doesn't solve the problem that I really don't have the money."

Another awkward silence. Arthur's pocket vibrated.

Mathias jerked his head. "You should take that."

Arthur made a face and put the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked, feeling kind of stupid, being on the phone with his friends looking on. He wasn't sure why this was the case; there really wasn't anything to feel awkward about. He hadn't had people to feel not-awkward around before.

"Ciao, ciao," Roma said from the other end. "Arthur, it's been so long since you gave me a ring!"

"Sorry," said Arthur. He gave his snickering friends a glare and walked away from them. Sometimes, Roma was needlessly loud on the phone.

"So, how are you?" Roma asked. "Anything fun going on?"

"If you count a trip to Berlin for history class as fun, then sure," said Arthur rather bitterly—he knew he wouldn't be able to go.

"Berlin?" Roma's voice rose in surprise. "Wow, that's great! Do you want to go?"

"Er…" Arthur bit his lip. He didn't really know what to say. He did want to visit Berlin and Germany, and he was sure that Mathias and Gilbert would want him to go, too. The main problems were, that well, he didn't have the money. Hell, he didn't have a passport.

"Is there something wrong?" Roma's voice jerked him out of his thoughts, and Arthur laughed nervously.

"No, well, I—I don't think I can go," he stammered.

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I… well, it's just, er… I don't… really… I don't think—"

"Is it a money problem?" Roma was so poignant that Arthur, stunned momentarily speechless, cringed.

"Um… yeah," he managed to choke out, almost guiltily.

"Arthur, you know that I'll willingly pay for it," Roma insisted. "I want you to go."

"Sorry?" Arthur frowned, but it was in shock and confusion rather than anger.

"I want you to go to Germany," repeated Roma. "I think it would be a good experience for you. You need to get out there and understand the world. And it's not only when you're touring or whatever. Business, awareness of what's really going on—it's easier to grasp when you see it.

"Tell you what," continued the Italian. "I'll fly down and help you get your passport, too."

Arthur wasn't sure he was capable of processing much, if any, thought. "R-really?" he managed.

"Really."

The Italian, though Arthur couldn't see him, smiled warmly and reassuringly through the mobile. Arthur couldn't help but smile, too.

"Thank you, Roma."

.

A hand shook his shoulder roughly. "Arthur!"

Arthur didn't say anything. Maybe if he kept his eyes closed, he could get his nice, if not weird, dream back. It was going to be a smack-down between Pete Townshend and Mick Jagger. Of course he'd want to stay asleep for that! Hell, it'd just started and they were getting all warmed up and everything—

"Arthur!" Something—it felt like the polyester-nylon fabric of their blazers—whipped him in the face and he pried open his eyes. The pale, concerned face of Mathias Kohler came into focus. "Arthur, we're landing in five minutes," he said.

"Then why did you wake me up?" Arthur grumbled. "Five minutes lost when I could have seen Mick and Pete fight…"

"What?"

"Five minutes, lad," Gilbert piped up, and he moved so that they could see his face. Barely. It was only visible in the crack between the two plane seats. "And I still have yet to brief you on Gilbert Beilschmidt's Awesome German Experience."

"Gilbert's what now?" Arthur asked sleepily.

"Gilbert Beilschmidt's Awesome German Experience," Gilbert repeated like he was talking to an idiot.

"Then by all means, brief us," said Arthur dryly.

"Simple," said Gilbert. "We sneak away after dinner and go to Klub Lido. Then we party until the dear wee hours of the morning. And then we go to bed."

"That sounds incredibly stupid."

"I think that sounds fun," Mathias chimed in. "But I've never heard of Klub Lido."

"It's really great!" Gilbert said. "My cousin told me they have great bands that play there, like, every other night."

That sounded more interesting. "Hang on, I want to see those," Arthur said.

"I knew you'd be interested," said Gilbert grinning. "So, you in?"

"When are we going?"

"Tonight, if possible."

"…You're mad," said Arthur.

"Not."

"Gilbo, as much as I'd like to go out and have myself a good time, we'll all have jetlag and be exhausted from walking around and travelling," the Dane pointed out. "And we have a lot to do today and tomorrow."

Gilbert made a face. "Well, I guess," he mumbled. Arthur yawned heavily in response and closed his eyes. _Maybe I can catch another couple minutes of sleep—_

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We will shortly be arriving in Berlin's Tegel Airport. The captain would like to ask that all passengers return to their seats and fasten their seatbelts in order to prepare for our descent. Thank you."

Mathias squirmed excitedly as he fastened his belt. "This is it!" he told Arthur gleefully.

The Bright rubbed his eyes and shrugged. He wasn't expecting much from Germany, actually, now that he really thought about it. A part of him wondered vaguely what he was doing on this plane, on this trip.

Gilbert leaned over again and gave them a thumbs-up.

Oh. That was why.

.

The day passed without much to happen, although when they got off the bus to go see Unter den Linden, Gilbert ran the whole length of the street (they could have put him on the track team at the speed he was going) and knelt down at the foot of a tall, bronze statue. Arthur didn't see what was particularly special about a six-metre statue of a man on horseback, but as Gilbert was kowtowing and yelling stupid things ("Old Fritz! Oh, old Fritz!") and generally making a fool of himself, it must have been relatively significant. Mathias told Arthur that the statue was of Frederich the Great of Prussia. Gilbert, claiming his lineage of Prussian nobility, probably had some sort of connection to the king. Something like that.

The German was later reprimanded by Stearns, and received detention to be completed after their trip.

So much for Prussian nobility. Surely, Arthur reasoned, the son of a count or duke (or whatever) wouldn't get _detention._

When he brought that up, Gilbert told him to stuff it up his arse. And various other colourful places.

After dinner, they checked into the hostel. It was a very modern-style hostel, with metal furnishings and bunk beds in every room and brightly painted coloured walls. He, Gilbert, and Mathias were all sharing a room, and when they walked in, Arthur immediately collapsed into one of the lower bunks while Gilbert dropped his bag on the floor and pulled his jacket off.

"Who's our fourth roomie?" he asked the others. A noncommittal grunt was Mathias's answer; Arthur merely turned over and yawned.

"I hope we don't have anyone el—" he began, but was interrupted as the door burst open.

"_Desolée, amis,_" announced another voice, and Arthur groaned, not bothering to even keep it to himself. It was bad enough that people kept disturbing him while he tried to sleep, but did it really have to be a fucking _frog? _

"Frannie!" Gilbert yelled. "Yesssss!"

Mathias waved. "Hi."

Arthur, even with his back to the rest of the room, could _feel _that frog coming closer and closer to him. _Oh my fuck, what am I going to do._ He weighed his options: on hand he could ignore Francis completely and hope the French boy would leave him alone. Not likely. Or he could punch Francis very very hard, but as tempting as that was, he got the sinking feeling that Gilbert would shun him for a while, and that wouldn't be good for the band. He could run, of course, but where was there to run to?

A sharp poke in his side and he jerked and flipped over to see Francis looking at him with an expression that was equal parts glee, mischief, and slight amazement (though at what, honestly, Arthur had no idea).

"What the bloody hell was that for?" Arthur snapped with all the friendliness of a disturbed beehive (he rather felt like one right then).

"I had to make sure that you weren't asleep," replied Francis, while behind him Gilbert was (quite literally) rolling on the floor laughing.

"You didn't need to poke me _that_ hard, tosser," Arthur shot back.

"Sorry," said Francis, but he didn't sound very sorry at all.

Arthur put his face in his pillow and screamed. It was going to be a long week. He could feel it already.

Mathias sat down on the other bunk. "You feeling all right, there, Artie?"

"Oh, I'm great," said Arthur darkly. "Just great."

Gilbert shrugged and yawned. "I'm going to take a shower. See you lads later."

He disappeared. Mathias mumbled a similar excuse, and left with him. It was just Arthur and Francis.

God. It was so horrible awkward. Arthur faced the wall and gripped his covers. He let his thoughts wander.

First off, why was Francis even here in the first place? Arthur didn't even remember Francis signing up to be their roommate. Then again—Arthur frowned slightly—Gilbert had turned that roommate form in for them. Oh, of course that mischievous tosser had put Francis's name in there. Probably to torture him, too. It was going to be just them, but _no, _of course Francis had to crash their little party. Er, whatever party there was to begin with.

Behind him he could hear Francis climb the other bunk to the top bed, and settle down with an annoying sigh. Then the sounds of soft breathing followed that somehow grated on Arthur's nerves. God, everything _about _Francis bothered him so much that Arthur just might—God, he didn't know—_strangle _something—

"The awesome is back!" Gilbert proclaimed, bursting through the door, Mathias close behind.

"Oh. That was fast," Arthur said, rolling over to face them. Mathias followed the German in, shrugging and grinning as if to say "He's awfully energetic after a shower."

"Hey, lads, I've got an idea!" Gilbert flopped down on the floor. "Let's play Truth or Dare!"

"Truth or what now?" Arthur raised an eyebrow, determinedly not looking at Francis.

"Truth or Dare," Gilbert repeated. "I ask someone 'Truth or Dare?' and they pick one. If they say 'Truth,' then I ask them a question they have to answer truthfully. If they say 'dare' I dare them to do something stupid."

"I like the sound of that, actually," said Mathias. "Is that something Alfred taught you?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

The Dane shrugged. "Just a hunch."

"Okay, then let's start." Gilbert waggled his fingers, and everyone laughed. "Okay, Francis! Truth or dare?"

"Truth," said the French boy. Arthur crossed his arms and tried not to look awkward as Francis's eyes flicked towards him.

"Okay." Gilbert rubbed his palms together. "Have you ever drunk-rang anyone and who?"

"Lame!" Mathias said, but Gilbert punched him.

"It's my question!" insisted the German.

Francis laughed. "Well, I've never drunk-rang anyone, but while we were walking around, I got my mobile and accidentally called a prostitute."

Gilbert fell over laughing. Mathias and Arthur both laughed to lesserdegrees.

"Arthur!" Mathias exclaimed. "Truth or dare?"

The Brit frowned. He hadn't been expecting to be picked, not this soon, anyway—but he probably should've known better. The people in this room—with them, well, anything could happen. He swallowed and answered.

"Dare."

Gilbert widened his eyes. "Ohhh! What's it gonna be? Take off your pants and wave them outside the window?"

Arthur turned red, thinking of his Union Jack boxers that he was wearing right then. "No!" he shouted, a little too defensively.

"No, Gilbo, that's not good enough. It's my dare, anyway. Okay." Mathias put his hands on his knees. "I dare you… to _kiss Francis._"

Arthur made a face, but Gilbert held up a hand.

"Wait a second, here," Gilbert interrupted. "Is _everyone _in here queer or what?" He glanced around menacingly, and Francis raised an eyebrow.

"You know me, Gilbert," he said shrugging.

Mathias only smirked—one very reminiscent of Gilbert's trademark ones.

Arthur frowned. He wished he could say he wasn't gay, but to be honest? He honestly didn't know.

"Agh, what does it matter anyway," Gilbert said, and threw up his hands. "I'll just sit here… and not watch… Go for it, Artie."

"Sorry?" said Arthur, still feeling very red.

"I dare you to kiss Francis. No, wait—I dare you to _snog _Francis," said Mathias with an evil grin. Arthur didn't even know that the Dane was capable of making such an expression. It was unnerving.

Arthur looked at the French boy, and made his repulsion obvious on his face. Francis, on the other hand, suddenly looked… well, Arthur couldn't read his expression. His round-eyed expression, with soft mouth and golden hair—

Fuck, what was he thinking? This was the bloody frog he was thinking about! Ugh. Arthur inhaled and exhaled. "Okay," he told Francis. "Let's just… let's just get this over with."

"Fair enough," said the other boy. Arthur shut his eyes—he didn't want to see that frog's face up close, let alone at all—and leaned forward. Somehow his heart was beating unsteadily and loudly in his ears, but for what, he didn't know. He could smell the frog's minty breath—dammit, why was his breath minty?—and hear his breathing. _In, out, in, out._

The first touch of their lips—that was like the electric high notes of a guitar solo, and if it were any more possible Arthur could feel his heart beat faster than ever. Francis tasted like mint—maybe he'd been chewing gum or something before—and had a surprisingly soft mouth. The kiss lasted quite long. Maybe it was too long. Maybe it wasn't long enough.

It would, however, be enough to keep Arthur staring into the darkness long after his roommates had fallen asleep.

.

The next two days passed in a blur of museums, restaurants, and hours spent on a bus. They visited places with long, German names that rolled off Gilbert's tongue easily and gave Arthur headaches just looking at them. They visited Checkpoint Charlie and Sachsenhausen and Deutsches Historisches Museum and Olympiastadion and too many other places that Arthur forgot the name of. It was all very much a great adventure, and Arthur admitted (to himself, no less) that he was starting to have fun. The people were all open and friendly, although it was rather difficult walking down the busy street without bruising his sides from bumping into everyone.

It was also filled with a blur of rather silly shenanigans. For example, on the bus, they once passed a newsstand stacked with magazines. That wasn't the unusual part. The magazines, were, well, plastered with… explicit images. Mathias, the idiotic git, had yelled out, and most everyone on the bus had crowded to that side to ogle. Gilbert, sitting next to Arthur, just laughed.

"This is nothing," he told the Brit (who felt rather wary of Gilbert right then). "You should see the beaches."

Sometimes they would walk past the occasional heroin junkie, too, and Arthur would get a sick feeling in his stomach and immediately think of Rhys, wasting away in his room and his chemical cloud. "Don't they usually do something about this?" he asked his German friend, but he only got a casual shrug in response.

Gilbert would also point out random bits of German culture—which, while rather helpful at times, became gradually more and more annoying. First it was saying "Guten Appetit" at every meal. Then it was "_Schönen Tag noch_" in the stores and then bragging about the billion different types of bread and wurst and all sorts of random other rubbish and it was driving Arthur absolutely _insane. _He had no problem with liking Germany, but did the lad ever shut up about it?

On Thursday they travelled to Potsdam, which was due southwest of Berlin. It was a fairly long bus ride, and Arthur popped in his earphones and wrote whatever music he could. Most of it ended up rubbish, but he felt like he'd churn out a good song if he tried hard enough. Something like that.

Before they arrived, Mr. Stearns stood up at the front of the bus with a megaphone. "Can everyone hear me?" he yelled into it, and the entire bus cringed.

"Sorry about that," he said in a normal voice. "Well, then, we _do _have a worksheet for Potsdam like we did for the German History Museum and Checkpoint Charlie"—everyone groaned—"no, no, don't groan! It's a good old scavenger hunt!" He paused, grinning goofily, like he was expecting them to laugh. "No? No? Well, all right. You'll be working with the people sitting next to you, so cheers to that, eh? Happy hunting!"

Arthur looked to his right and groaned. _Not the frog! _He hadn't even _noticed _Francis sit down next to him! He suppressed a groan of frustration and instead made a fist in his hair. His life was a mess. A god-damn-forsaken mess.

The bus stopped. Arthur bit his lip as everyone got up.

Francis didn't smile or anything like he usually was, the slimy frog. He simply looked at Arthur with those damn blue eyes and said "What are you waiting for? Let's get to it."

Arthur swallowed. "Yeah, sure."

Potsdam was beautiful. Or rather, it was Park Sanssouci—Arthur cringed slightly at the French name—which Francis translated for him in a whisper: "without a care." The buildings were covered in green vines and leaves, or else decorated with ornate stonework that dated back from the Baroque period, and flowers and plants covered the rest of the grounds. Francis seemed to lag behind as they walked through the park, camera in hand. Arthur could hear the slight clicking noise of the shutter going off.

"Stop taking so many pictures," Arthur said crankily. "We have to finish this!" He waved the worksheet around.

"There isn't a rush, Arthur," said Francis, laughing as he took pictures of squirrels. _Squirrels! _Arthur ground his teeth. There was that, and then there was something in how Francis said his name—it just seemed to annoy him and get under his skin like nails on chalkboard.

"Don't call me Arthur," he grumbled.

"All right, then," said Francis. "I'll call you _lapin _instead, _oui?_"

Arthur reached up and yanked his fringe in frustration. "Just—don't call me anything!"

"Sure, _lapin,_" laughed the French boy. Arthur shook his head. This wasn't a battle to waste his energy on. Instead he cast his eyes on his paper, reading the first question: _What is inside the Chineseisches Teehaus (Chinese Teahouse)?_

"C'mon, let's go," he sighed. "We have to go to the Chinese Teahouse. I think it's that way." He pointed.

"All right," said Francis compliantly, smiling.

They began walking, side by side, and Arthur felt extremely uncomfortable. He tried to keep his limbs to himself—he felt like that if he stuck his elbow out, he might brush the French boy's side or something.

_Arthur, you're making too big a deal out of this, _a part of him said. _Francis is pretty harmless. You found that out last night._

Arthur shut his eyes. He was going mad, he was. Francis was a frog, and if he'd learned anything about frogs, it was that they weren't to be trusted.

"Is this it?" Francis's voice cut into his thoughts. Arthur summoned his self-control and looked at him.

"What?" he said, feeling tension leak into his voice.

"This." Francis pointed.

It was a nice building, but Arthur thought it a rather a lot like every single other fancy old building in the park. And as he squinted, the sign didn't read "_Chineseisches Teehaus_."

"That's not it," Arthur said with exasperation.

"Then we should keep walking," said Francis, and marched off. Arthur sighed and hurried to keep up.

"So, Arthur." Francis put his hands in the pockets of his school blazer (which, much to Arthur's dismay, they were required to wear at all their sightseeing tours). "How are you this fine day in Potsdam?"

"Not great—since I'm talking to you," retorted Arthur.

"Oh, c'mon _lapin_," the French boy said, laughing. "I'm not going to poison you or anything."

Arthur eyed his companion warily. "You never know."

"Ah, you're too paranoid." Francis looked up at the sky. "You should loosen up a little bit. Relax. Quite uptight for a rock star, aren't you?"

"Shut up," said Arthur. He looked at the ground.

"Why _do_ you hate me so much, _lapin_?" Francis asked him.

Arthur stared straight ahead. Bloody hell. There were so many answers to that question. First: Francis's long hair. Honestly, who wore their hair like that still? Second: his eyes, God. Those eyes were just _creepy. _Round and obnoxious and never failing to make Arthur's skin crawl. Third? Well. Arthur wouldn't talk of that. He could never talk of that. It was just… no. He needed to stop thinking about it, even if there was that reminder next to him, breathing and walking with that blond hair and blue eyes and smile and god, what was he thinking? He pushed those thoughts away. It was no use reminiscing over something that was better left secret.

"Arthur?" Francis' voice boomed in his ear, and the Brit jumped.

"Oh. Sorry." Arthur reached up and closed his fingers around the earring in the lobe.

"Are you going to tell me why you hate me?"

Arthur looked at the other boy, who'd stopped walking. A moment passed between them. Arthur wasn't sure what it was exactly, the two of them wearing matching school blazers, standing under the trees of Park Sanssouci in Germany. He wasn't even sure if he liked it or not. Only that he shouldn't have. He shouldn't have liked it...

"No," Arthur said, so quietly that he couldn't even hear himself. "I can't tell you that."

Francis sighed softly. "Well, it doesn't matter too much, now does it? I feel like I've seen this building before," he added, switching the subject abruptly, and pointed out the same building they'd first approached in Sanssouci.

"What?" Arthur groaned. "Dammit, we've been walking around for—"

"Five minutes?" Francis suggested.

"No." Arthur gave Francis an odd look. "It's been at least... an hour?" He checked his watch. "Nope, it's been at least two hours."

"Time does fly, doesn't it?" Francis laughed, and Arthur suppressed another groan. Was this boy bipolar or something? One minute he was as sober as Arthur and the next he was chasing butterflies. Goddammit.

"No, that's not it! Dammit." Arthur yanked on his hair. "We've been walking around for two whole hours and we've done a full lap around the park?"

"So?"

"Dammit, Francis!" Arthur shouted. "We're lost in Berlin!

"Lost!"

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Good fun, this chapter. Did a whole crapload of research for what, five tiny details? Good job, me.

All of the places I mentioned—Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum), Checkpoint Charlie, Unter den Linden, the Statue of Frederich the Great, Olympiastadion, Sachsenhausen Museum, Park Sanssouci in Potsdam, the Chinese Teahouse—they are real and can be found in and around Berlin. :) Doing research for this chapter really made me want to go to Germany TT^TT I really encourage you to go out and look them up and go there. I want to, ahaha.

Oh, _Oma _is supposed to be German for 'grandmother.' Cuz Gilbo's German and all.

I feel like I'm boring you all or something with this mundane-mundane chapter. That's bildungsroman for you.

Second part of their adventures in Germany to come up next :


	8. adventures in deutschland pt II

_8. adventures in deutschland, pt 2_

"Arthur, being lost isn't always a bad thing," said Francis lazily as he scrolled through the pictures on his camera.

The Brit shot a sulky glare at his partner. They were sitting on a bench, resting and trying to figure out what to do. Or, Arthur was. He wasn't really sure about what Francis was doing, exactly.

"Easy enough for you to say, you stupid frog," muttered Arthur. "You do realise that we have to go back so we can go back to Britain, right? And if not then we'll be stuck here forever with no money and no resources."

"That's not entirely true," replied Francis.

"What's _that _supposed to mean?" Arthur snapped.

"Whatever you want it to be."

Arthur made a noise between a growl and a snarl and crossed his arms again. "Bugger it all, bugger this stupid frog—"

"I don't appreciate you calling me that," Francis said finally, with a slightly cross look on his face. He put his camera away. "So let's calm down and think for a second. Have you got your mobile?"

"No, left it in London," said Arthur grumpily. "It wouldn't've got service here, anyway."

Francis frowned and patted his pockets. "_Merde,_" he swore. "I've left mine on the bus."

Arthur groaned. "Great." _A whole day to spend with the frog without any outside contact—exactly what I needed!_

Francis checked his watch. "Well, since we've really got nothing else to do, why don't we go find something to eat? It's past noon—"

He was interrupted by a loud growling noise, and Arthur quickly gripped his torso. _Dammit. _Even with that heavy breakfast, he was still hungry. He wondered rather angrily where the sudden appetite had come from; he was used to not eating much at all. God, he remembered times in Liverpool where all he'd ever have to eat for the entire day was a tiny, mouldy biscuit. That was before he met Roma. _Damn you, Italian!_

Francis merely chuckled lightly and stood up. "Come on, why don't we get going? Food isn't going to walk itself here."

In the end they went to a fast-food place with a long German name, rather like the ones that Alfred F. Jones the American went on and on about (though Arthur didn't really see what was so great about McDonald's—their fries were tasteless and their burgers a complete mess... not that he liked burgers to begin with), except they served wurst on bread. The sausages were oily and slippery and Arthur nearly dropped his. Francis laughed. The bloody frog laughed at everything he did. And to make it worse, Francis took out his camera and began snapping photos of him.

"Arthur, the faces you make are so _drôle!_" Francis laughed, as he twisted the camera this way and that, pressing the shutter rapidly.

"They are _not _funny!" Arthur growled before thinking.

Francis paused and lowered his camera, a curious expression on his face. "You know French?"

Arthur cursed his bloody big mouth silently. "N-no. I don't," he said as firmly as he could, but Francis shook his head like he wasn't fooled.

"_Tch, tch,_" he chastised Arthur playfully. "_Je sais que tu sais que je dis!_"

"I do _not!"_ yelled Arthur before realising his mistake, and Francis laughed.

"_Lapin, lapin, arrêtez-toi être bête!" _he teased and Arthur groaned.

"_Si tu parles français, poudrais—poudrais-tu me aider avec les devoirs?_" he stammered in broken French.

"_Bien sûr,_" replied Francis pleasantly. "_Mais tu dois répondre à ma question."_

"What?" Arthur said irritably.

"_Pourquoi est-ce que tu étudies français?"_

"Why do you like to know so much about me?" Arthur retorted. "First, you want to know why I hate you, and then you want to know why I'm taking French?"

Francis shrugged. "Making conversation," he said, and if Arthur's ears weren't playing tricks on him (which they usually weren't), his accent seemed slightly more pronounced.

"How about," the French boy continued, "if we play a game of sorts?"

"A game?"

"_Oui_," said Francis. "I will ask you question about you, and you will answer truthfully. One question only. _Seulment_," he added, with a teasing grin at Arthur, who scoffed. "Then in turn, you will ask me a question about me, and I will answer truthfully."

"That sounds like a stupid game."

"Oh, Arthur, don't be a drag."

"Don't call me Arthur! Or a drag!"

"Sure, _lapin._"

Arthur narrowed his eyes and considered his options. He could refuse, of course, but what good would that do, really? He had a whole day to do nothing with this frog, and as much as he hated Francis, that sounded awful. He figured that maybe he could just go with it... didn't people always say to "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer"? It sounded like a reasonably valid argument to him.

"All right," Arthur said. "I'll play the game. But you can't ask me why I hate you."

Francis gave him a long look in that second, and shrugged. "_D'accord._ I'm not sure if I really want to hear it anyway."

Good. Arthur's secret was safe.

"Would you like to go first?" Francis asked.

"No, you go."

Francis shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "All right. Why are you taking French if you hate French people so much?"

Arthur grimaced and crossed his arms. "Mfff..."

Francis cocked his head. "Didn't catch that, sorry."

"Roma made me," the Brit mumbled. "Kind of a tosser, he is."

Francis looked like he wanted to say something, but shut his mouth. "All right, your turn."

Arthur thought. "Why do you live in Englandif you're _French_?"

The French boy laughed. "My father is British," he said. "But he had a long stint doing work in France, and that's where he met my mum. I lived in France until I was eleven, and then we moved to the U.K."

Arthur nodded vaguely. Quite an interesting answer, actually.

"So, who is Roma?" Francis asked. "Who is he to you?"

"That's two questions."

"Oh. My bad."

"Roma..." Arthur suddenly got a comforting feeling in his stomach and he felt his whole body relax—he hadn't realised how wound up he was before; Francis must've done that to him. "He's this bloke that I met in Liverpool... he taught me how to play guitar."

"Your mentor, then?"

"Something like that, yeah." Arthur laughed, thinking about the crazy, brunet man with an infectious joy. "He's crazy and Italian, but he's great, really great."

There was a small _click_ and Arthur opened his eyes to see Francis studying his camera intently with an expression that didn't seem happy or sad... just intense. It was only a split second that Arthur saw that face, which was then quickly replaced by a brilliant (and very French) grin in his direction. "Sorry about that," Francis said, hastily stowing the camera away. "It was your turn, was it?"

"Er... yeah," said Arthur. "Uh... well, um, why do you wear your hair so long?"

"Oh, this?" Francis tugged one strand of blond hair. "I dunno, that's just… well, I went to Paris last summer and that's just how they cut it," he said, shrugging. Arthur noticed that he said "Paris" like "Paree," with that funny French 'r' that Arthur could never manage.

"How do you do that?" demanded the Brit, forgetting the game for a moment.

"Do what?" asked Francis.

"That odd little 'r' thing," Arthur said. "The weird French r."

"You can't do it?" Francis looked like he was smothering a laugh.

"No."

"_Non? Comme merci, Paris, chéri?"_ On every word the 'r' rolled off Francis's tongue, and Arthur slammed his fists on the table.

"Stop it!" he said, trying to stifle his own laughter that was threatening to bubble out of his stomach. "Stop it and teach me so I don't get marks off when I read!"

Francis scratched his chin. "I'm not really sure how I do it, exactly… I suppose it's a bit like gargling water at the back of your throat, but without the water."

Arthur thought about it. Then he tried. The sound that came out of his throat was more like a hacking cough than anything else, and Francis put his head down on the table, shoulders shaking.

"Oh god, you're a riot," he said in between gasps of air, and Arthur reddened slightly before laughing with him. He wasn't sure what made him start, but he laughed and God knew it didn't feel as horrible as he thought it would, laughing with Francis.

Afterwards, Arthur didn't remember what they did, exactly. They laughed and they talked and they bickered for bickering's sake. Arthur tried more bits of broken French, which was really limited to "Do you like to play tennis?" and "Could I have more tea?" Francis freely made fun of his atrocious pronunciation, and somehow Arthur didn't hate that. Hell, Arthur seemed to forget everything in those hours that he promised to himself that he wouldn't forget and he felt himself, just a little bit, starting to like Francis. Just a bit. He didn't know what it was, exactly, but he didn't bother with it. He just sort of… went with it. And it felt okay.

The sun travelled across the sky, and it was comfortably bright when somehow, Arthur ended up taking pictures of Francis doing rather _explicit _things to a statue. Then he heard a yell from behind.

"Oyyy! There you guys are!" Gilbert came running down the pavement, waving his arms stupidly, his blond hair nearly white in the afternoon sun. "Francis, what are you doing to that statue? Lad, if someone catches you doing that, they're gonna kick your arse back to the Eiffel Tower."

Francis laughed and untangled himself from the bronze statue. "Nope, these are just souvenirs for myself," he said, laughing, and Gilbert grinned back.

Arthur lowered the Francis's red camera and handed it back to the French boy. The buzz that he'd felt before (_was it a buzz? Was it?_), laughing and floating, had all but faded away, and something… something very heavy and unsettling remained in his stomach. "Here you go," he mumbled, chest clenching when Francis's fingers brushed his.

"It's nearly seventeen o'clock," said Mathias, who'd been trailing Gilbert the whole time. "We ought to go get dinner."

"This early?" Gilbert complained, but Francis shrugged agreeably.

"That sounds fine to me," he said, and they headed out, Gilbert babbling on and on about his usual nonsense, and Francis laughing with him. Mathias fell into step beside Arthur. "You all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

Mathias looked up at the sky and laughed. "Ah, well, spending six straight hours with someone you hate? That must really be horrible."

Arthur shot him a surprised look.

The Dane shrugged. "Let's just say I know the feeling."

Arthur hesitated. "Well, I dunno. It wasn't too bad, I s'pose."

Mathias raised one eyebrow. "I see. Did you have any time to finish that worksheet?"

"Not really, no," said Arthur, oddly embarrassed.

"Well, you can copy mine."

"All right."

.

It was dark when something extremely large and heavy jumped on Arthur's bed. "Artie!" someone whispered in his ear. "Get up and put on your skinny jeans! Let's goooooo!"

Arthur gagged at the smell of alcohol-heavy breath in his face. "Gilbert," he groaned. "You're pissed, dammit. And now I'm awake."

"Me too," said Mathias from the top bunk, rolling over.

"And me too," said Francis, jumping into Arthur's bunk also, a huge French grin on his face.

"Fuck!" groaned Arthur, writhing between the two boys. "Get _off_ my bed, wankers!"

Gilbert licked Arthur's face (Arthur _seriously _hoped that Gilbert was drunk at this point) and rolled off, giggling. Francis, instead of rolling off, rolled onto Arthur, grinning madly.

"That's hot," remarked Mathias, laughing. He'd climbed down from his bunk and had his hands on his hips.

"Piss off," growled Arthur, trying to ignore Francis's proximity (which was becoming extremely uncomfortable) by breathing in as little as possible. "Get off me."

Francis winked (which sent peculiar shuddering feelings through Arthur's insides) and rolled off obediently with a thump on the floor. Arthur sat up to see Gilbert looking up at him.

"What now?" grumbled Arthur.

"Let's go to Lido now!" the German squeaked back in an uncharacteristically high, bubbly voice. "Lido, Lido, Lido!"

Mathias picked up his mobile and squinted. "It's all the way in Kreuzberg! D'you really think we'd have time to get there and back?"

"'Course!" said Gilbert with wide red eyes. "My cousin got me tickets, let's go, go, go!"

Arthur rubbed his eyes. "Well, all right," he agreed grumpily. "But only because I want to see those bloody bands."

"Yayy!" Gilbert cheered and clapped his hands while Arthur slipped out of flannel pants and into jeans. He hoped that it was dark enough that the bloody frog couldn't see, but even still, he ducked behind the bunk to change.

When they were all ready, Gilbert bounced out of the room, Francis skipping along after him, humming something that sounded vaguely familiar, and Mathias chuckled. "Wonder if they're always this hyper when they're drunk?" he muttered to Arthur.

"Wonder where they got the alcohol to begin with?" Arthur countered. "We're barely fifteen to begin with."

They went by train, but as soon as they got off they had to walk to the club. It was really very plain-looking, with a simple concrete façade and odd, wide grooves carved into the sides, and windows plastered with flyers and posters and all sorts of other things. Gilbert walked straight up to the bouncer, saluted goofily and handed them their tickets, ignoring the line of university-age kids who were complaining angrily at them, and they filed in, Arthur trailing, because he was still ogling at the neon-blue cursive letters on the top, flashing Lido.

Arthur had been in clubs before, since he'd played with Jager and Sadik in places around London, but he wasn't any less impressed by this alternative and hip place, with such an electric atmosphere and laser lights and good, loud music, even if it was heavier and maybe more industrial and metal than he was used to. Maybe they didn't play this sort of music every night, but it was good, and the crowd was eating it up, and it was fantastic. Arthur could close his eyes and just picture himself and Gilbert and Mathias standing on that stage, bright hot pink and blue lights flashing behind them, mist everywhere, microphones and everything. God, it was brilliant, bloody brilliant.

"Doo!" screamed Gilbert from beside him. "Do hahsst! Do hahsst mich!"

"What are you yelling?" shouted Arthur.

"It's Rammstein!" Gilbert yelled back gleefully. "_Du hast mich!_"

Judging from the amount of cheering and dancing, Arthur guessed it must be a big thing in Germany. The guitars were loud and deep, so much that Arthur could feel it vibrate the floor and up to the tips of his ears. He couldn't help but relax and laugh and enjoy the music, because even if it wasn't something he wasn't used to listening to, it was the first good live music that he'd listened to in a long time.

The lead singer's voice was deep and rich and guttural, though Arthur figured that was really because of the German. He also seemed to have a certain kind of stage presence, what with his leather pants and facial piercings. His hair was styled in this extremely punk manner, with a sort of thick flop of bleached-blond hair on top and more natural-looking brown hair under it. His eyes were dark against the bright stage light, and an intricate pattern of ink up his arm.

He was amazing. He _owned _that stage, grinning devilishly and screaming into the microphone so loudly that Arthur thought for one frantic second that his ears had blown out. Either way, the bloke was fantastic and Arthur found himself wishing he was as good as performing as that man. It sort of reminded him of someone he knew, the way the chap sang and danced on that stage…

"Bloody hell!" screamed Gilbert into Arthur's ear. "Bloody hell, that's my cousin Will!"

"Who?" Mathias shouted.

"Wilhelm!" Gilbert screamed.

"Who?" Francis shouted again, laughing.

"My cousin, idiots!" screamed Gilbert. "The guy who got us tickets! We have to go talk to him, we totally do!"

"How would we do that?" yelled Francis.

"Henn cool out from nut!"

"What?" Arthur and Mathias said at the same time; Arthur with a frown on his face and Mathias with a laugh.

"Let me go out for a minute!" Gilbert repeated, and with that he waved his mobile in their faces and moved away. Francis shrugged, and disappeared also, but it seemed like he was heading the opposite direction, so it was just Arthur and Mathias in the club, with the music and sweaty German crowd and heavy industrial metal shaking Arthur to his bones, so heavy that he could almost taste its saltiness and its strong bass, its rough-edged vocals. It was great, and Mathias threw an arm around Arthur's shoulders, his laughter lost in the ending clash of the drums as the song ended.

Francis came back with a drink in hand and offered some of it to Mathias. It smelled sweet and alcoholic and Arthur gagged. God knew how much Francis had already drunk, and Arthur really didn't want to deal with a drunk frog.

"Hey, all right, I got us all in backstage!" Gilbert yelled. "Come on, let's go!"

He grabbed Arthur's wrist roughly and led him through the throng of bodies, through a door, and out of the throbbing dark and into more normal, eye-friendly light Blinking, Arthur saw that the room was occupied by the same people who'd been onstage playing the metal music. Some of them were lounging on the low couches, some of them leaning against the wall, but either way they were surrounded by women and beer and dressed in denim and leather.

One of them looked up and immediately broke into a huge grin. It was the lead singer from before, with bleached hair and strong features not unlike Gilbert's younger brothers. Now that Arthur could see him up close and in proper lighting, he noticed the singer had deep gray-blue eyes and a slightly too-wide mouth, which was studded with steel piercings. He straightened his leather jacket and stood up. "Gilbert!" he cried, and a rapid stream of German followed, which annoyed Arthur because he couldn't understand it.

Gilbert grinned and returned the rapid stream of German, and then embraced the boy.

"Lads, this is my cousin Wilhelm," he said, arm still casually around his cousin's shoulders. "Will, the cranky bloke with the eyebrows is Arthur, long hair is Francis, and gelled stand-up hair is Mathias."

"Very nice to meet you all," said Wilhelm in accented English, giving a nod in their direction.

"If you don't mind me asking," said Mathias. "What were you saying before in German?"

Wilhelm laughed. "I was just saying how Gilbo's got a Scouse accent in German."

"And _I _was saying Will's a right bloody bastard," retorted Gilbo, and they laughed. Arthur smiled for appearance's sake, but he couldn't really shake the feeling he didn't belong with them, standing here in the makeshift green room (or so he supposed), surrounded by all these people. It was an awfully lonely feeling, especially when n he was standing so close to his bandmates, people he knew well.

"…so Arthur here had me learn bass, and I was really, really horrible at it at first…"

Arthur landed back on Earth to hear Gilbert babbling on and on about their band. Great, he thought. Another opportunity to look like idiots. Bloody idiots.

"He's brilliant, he is," Mathias chimed in, and Arthur cringed. If they were talking about him, well… as much as he liked to be called brilliant and such, he somehow didn't want to feel brilliant, not in front of these people. Oh god, what were they going to do now?

"Really?" asked Wilhelm, looking very interested. "Let's see it, then, _ja_?"

"See what?" said Arthur, feeling very alarmed. _What were they going to do?_

"You." Wilhelm waved his hand awkwardly. "Your skills. Something."

"Show him that new song we're doing!" Gilbert suggested (rather forcefully, Arthur thought).

"What song?" asked Francis, and Arthur scowled at the French boy, who was all curious, wide eyes.

"The one Artie wrote all by himself!" Gilbert said. "What's it called again?"

" 'J-Just Pitiful,'" mumbled Arthur.

"Yeah, play it!" insisted the German boy.

Wilhelm nodded. "Yeah, let's see it."

Arthur looked around awkwardly to see everyone in the group looking at him expectantly. "Uh.. well, I dunno, it's better when Gilbert sings it…"

"Yeah, but you're good too," Mathias said. "At singing."

"Here, you can use my guitar," said Wilhelm, and he picked up a red acoustic guitar and handed it to the Brit. It was really a nice guitar, with a comfortable weight that wasn't too light or heavy, and a fretboard that wasn't too long or wide or heavy or clumsy, and the sound hole was decorated with a flowery design.

Arthur sighed. "Well, if it's acoustic, then you don't mind if I play something else that I've worked out, do you?"

"'Course not," said Gilbert. "Anything that comes out of your head'll be brilliant."

Arthur reddened, tucked the guitar under his arm, and closed his eyes. His fingers found A major, and he began to play.

"_Oh hold me close to you, lavender dear…_"

He felt really awkward singing those lines, especially since when he closed his eyes he could see his mum's face clearly in his mind's head, but that quickly faded away. He was playing for his mum and that was it, really. He missed her and he'd written a song about her because he missed her and loved her and that was that. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut and poured his soul into his voice and into the guitar.

When he finished, he paused slightly to let the chord ring in the air, then realised that there was no background noise of talking and laughing and drinking. He opened his eyes to see that everyone in the room was staring at him, but not in a bad way—they were all… for lack of a better word, spellbound. They looked at him appraisingly and in amazement, and he swallowed the awkwardness and smiled weakly. "Er, hi," he said.

Wilhelm grinned and began to clap. The rest of the room followed, and Arthur turned red.

"Hey, that was, as Gilbert puts it, _brilliant,_" Wilhelm said enthusiastically.

Mathias punched Arthur in the shoulder playfully. "He's not lying either; that was bloody beautiful."

Arthur shrugged. "Yeah. I dunno. Sure."

"No, don't undersell yourself," said Wilhelm, stumbling over the words awkwardly in his rush to get them out. "That was amazing. There's something about you that I think will go far. Very far."

"Willie, you should see us all together," said Gilbo, and Wilhelm laughed.

"I should," he agreed, and Arthur gulped.

"Yeah, sure," he said, still slightly in awe of Wilhelm's praise. "Yeah, I guess."

"When did you write that?" asked Mathias. "I hadn't heard that until you played it just now."

"No, I think he was… he was humming that on the plane ride here," said Gilbert.

"I was?" said Arthur incredulously.

"Yeah, you were."

"That's adorable," said Mathias.

"Shut up," retorted Arthur. "I wasn't."

"Yeah, you were," repeated Gilbert. "While you were sleeping."

Arthur groaned. "You can't be serious."

"I am," said the German boy with a straight face.

"It doesn't matter, really," interjected Wilhelm. "But why don't you try and have a go with this crowd? I think I can get you on, maybe for one or two songs?"

"Seriously?" Gilbert's eyes shone.

"That'd be great!" Mathias said.

Francis patted Arthur on the back, and Arthur swallowed the shivers, trying to ignore the French boy's smile. It didn't work as well as he thought it would.

Wilhelm disappeared with a nod, and when he returned he gave them only a grin and began herding them towards the stage. "I tipped the man a couple extra euros, so you can do maybe one song, and that's it," he whispered in their ears. "This is your chance! Don't waste it!"

Arthur stumbled out onto the stage, the cool mist swirling around him and the bright vivid laser lights of the club flashing at the edges of his eyes. He blinked several times to get rid of the dizzy feeling in his head, and looked out at the crowd, a sea of pink-ish faces illuminated by the stage lights. A guitar on a stand sat near the edge, beckoning with a long pick guard and steel strings. He looked back at his bandmates, they stared back at him with a question. He answered.

"You can never go wrong with the Fab Four," he told them, picking up the guitar and settling the strap over his shoulder, feeling the hum of electricity and music in it. " 'She Loves You' in ten and counting."

Gilbert nodded, as did Mathias. The Dane twirled his drumsticks and waggled his eyebrows. The German cleared his throat and hummed a quick scale.

"One, two, three four," Mathias said, clacking his sticks together in time, and they launched into the song.

"_She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah; she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah…"_

The song was one of Arthur's favourites. It was fun to play, full of happiness and elation, and Arthur could feel himself starting to smile as he sang in harmony with Gilbert. It was a cheerful, upbeat song, and he could feel it in his blood and in his bones and in his fingers and in the guitar strings and in the crowd, and he couldn't help but laugh at the sheer joy and wonder and amazement in his limbs. The crowd loved it, too. It'd been so long since they'd performed properly on a proper stage with a proper crowd and proper amps and volume, but Arthur could feel it flowing back to him now, like water rushing down a waterfall, with all the sharp tingle of electricity of rock music. God it was fantastic, and he didn't want it to stop…

But then he found himself standing at the edge of the stage, holding sweaty hands with Gilbert and Mathias and throwing them up and them bowing down to an enthusiastic, cheering crowd.

"_DANKE!_" Gilbert shouted to them, but he was barely heard among the cheers. "_Danke!"_

_Yeah,_ Arthur thought, blood pounding in his head so hard he felt dizzy and adrenaline rushing through his veins so fast he felt too awake. _Danke, Berlin._

_Danke._

* * *

><p><strong>author's note:<strong>

I just realised that Francis completely drops his 'French' accent in this chapter. Trololol.

Wilhelm (Gilbert's "cousin") isn't actually anyone from Hetalia, but if you must, you can think of him as Brandenberg. :3

Songs featurrrreedddd: "She Loves You" by The Beatles (of course) and "_Du Hast Mich_" by Rammstein. Which is a German industrial metal band. (Kisses to handbehindthepen for telling me about them, lol)

_**Pulling back that French knowledge from last year, ugh:  
><strong>_"_Je sais que tu sais que je dis!_"_—_"I know you know what I'm saying!"  
>"<em>Lapin, lapin, arrêtez-toi être bête!"—<em>"Rabbit, rabbit, stop being silly!"  
>"<em>Si tu parles français, peux—peux-tu me aider avec les devoirs?<em>"—"If you speak French, could—could you help me with the homework?"  
>"<em>Bien sûr... Mais tu dois répondre à ma question."<em>—"Sure... but you must answer my question."  
>"<em>Pourquoi est-ce que tu étudies français?" —<em>"Why are you studying French?"

And _danke _means 'thank you' in German. :) So, uh, reviews please? XD

**_* 05 decembre 2011: _**_fixed it up a bit... shouldn't be as many awkward sentences now :) Also, **would someone so kindly volunteer to be my beta**? I'm sure you've noticed the 23489374983274 grammar mistakes/awkward weirdness/inconsistencies throughout this story... It'd be really helpful, swear!_


	9. don't know why you say goodbye

_9. don't know why you say good-bye_

June arrived with a great deal of English rain, and Arthur was forced to keep an umbrella stashed in his bag to keep dry between second and third hours. He kept to the covered walkways as much as he could, but try as he might, he couldn't avoid that one path crossing straight through the quad to French. It was particularly wet that day, too, wet and dank and Arthur was walking quickly on the pavement, trying to avoid stepping on muddy clots of grass. He pulled the brolly down closer to his head and sighed. He didn't _really _hate rain, but it rather made things fairly uncomfortable and inconvenient.

"Wait, please!"

Arthur turned to see a girl running towards him, with wavy blond hair that had darkened in the rain and round green eyes. Her skirt and blazer were soaked, and she was holding her bag above her head to keep from getting wet, though it wasn't very effective.

"Thanks," she said, breathing very hard, and ducked under his umbrella.

"Oh… you're welcome," he said awkwardly. "I guess," he added after she flashed a grin at him (_one rather reminiscent of Francis's_).

"It's not problem," she laughed. Arthur thought he sort of recognized her but couldn't quite place her name or face. The green eyes did look familiar though. He frowned, struggling to remember.

"Something wrong?" she asked innocently.

"Er, I'm sorry to ask, really"—here she laughed—"but do I know you at all?"

She laughed again—it was a nice laugh, really, though Arthur—and shrugged her shoulders in a very innocent way. "I'm in your French class."

"Really?" Arthur searched his memory while he opened the door. "I didn't know that."

"Term's almost over and you _still _don't know my name?" she teased, and spun into the building. The corner of Arthur's mouth drooped slightly.

"Piss off," he told her, but he didn't really mean it, and she seemed to know that.

"Well, if you really don't know me," she said, shrugging her shoulders again. "I'm Bella, Bella van Vliet."

"Arthur Kirkland," he returned. "Er, nice to meet you."

"Oh, I know who you are," Bella said. "My brother's mentioned you quite a few times."

"Your brother?"

"Yeah. Jager. He's a university senior, but—"

Arthur didn't hear anything past "Jager," because he suddenly added two and two. "Jager? Jager van Vliet?"

She looked slightly taken aback "Yes. Er—"

"I know him," Arthur burst out. "Yeah, he's brilliant!"

"So are you," she countered, and he looked down at her to see a very intense look in her green eyes.

The moment was broken by the bell tolling suddenly, and Arthur let out an "Oh fuck!"

Bella gave him a sideways glance. "Race you to class."

She took off at an astonishingly fast speed, and Arthur stumbled to catch her. He wasn't the fastest runner around, but he was able to catch her in the stairwell—Vans were awfully easy to run in. Right as they reached the classroom, he tripped and nearly fell onto her—well, actually, he did fall on her, enough that she let out a squeak as they stumbled in.

The teacher looked up with a stern look on her face. "_En retard, tous les deux vous! Asseyez__-vous!"_

Bella shot a grin at Arthur as if to say "What a tosser" and slumped into her seat. Arthur slid into his own seat, which was right next to Antonio's. The Spanish boy grinned and cocked his head suggestively at Arthur, though what he was trying to suggest was beyond him.

"What?" the Brit snapped tiredly in a whisper.

"Walking in the rain with Bella van Vliet, huh?" Antonio whispered. "What else were you doing?"

"What's _that _supposed to mean?" Arthur asked, still frowning.

"You didn't know?" The Spanish boy raised his eyebrows. "She _fancies _you."

"She _doesn't_," Arthur insisted. "I know her brother, that's all."

"Mm-hmm," Antonio said, obviously not convinced. The boy was dimmer than Arthur had realized, dammit.

Arthur let out an exasperated sigh and focused his attention on the teacher, who was still lecturing about exams.

"Now, your exams will start on _le__ dix juin_," she said. "Which as you know, is really just next week…"

She kept going on and on about what they needed to know for the test, but Arthur didn't seem to be able to process what she was saying. Except for _le semaine prochaine.__ Next week__. La semaine prochaine. _Bloody hell, exams were _next week !_

He sat there, thinking that for the rest of the period, and when the bell chimed, he grabbed his bag.

"Arthur where are you going?" Antonio yelled after him.

"Dorm to study!" Arthur yelled back over the shoulder.

"But don't you have—"

"Exams next week, can't waste time!" Arthur turned his head back to look forward just in time to make out a brown jacket with a little star logo sewn on it. Then he suddenly couldn't breathe because, well, he was suffocating. In the brown jacket with the little star logo sewn on it.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Arthur blurted out into the blazer.

Alfred F. Jones straightened his glasses and laughed. "No, it's all right. I didn't watch where I was going."

"Neither was I," Arthur said quickly.

"Hey, where you heading for the library? Because, uh, I could really use some help with chemistry. I still don't completely understand this thermo-chemistry thing—" Arthur looked up (Alfred was taller than him) and saw a very oddly hopeful and (if Arthur wasn't mistaken) sort of bashful expression on Alfred's face. There was something in the American's face at which Arthur couldn't resist scrunching his face up into a smile; he was just so silly in that moment… so Arthur shrugged.

"I was heading for the dormitories, actually," he admitted to the American, "but sure, I can go with you to the library. I don't mind having a study partner."

This was sort of a lie. Arthur preferred to do things alone. He didn't open up easily. It'd taken him a bit of time to open up to Gilbert and Mathias properly. He'd hardly talked to Alfred all year, but still. Still. It was worth saying that to see Alfred light up and twist his face into such an expression that Arthur thought the American might wet his pants. It forced a laugh out of his stomach, and they walked to the library, bantering easily like Arthur had never done before.

But as they walked there, side-by-side, the Brit caught sight of Francis walking out of it.

He had a very sad look in his violet-blue eyes, Francis did.

.

Arthur collapsed in his dorm bad and sighed. Studying was bloody exhausting, and he felt like his brain might explode with all the conjugated verbs and the figures and formulas he had to remember—

_Buzzzzzzzz._

The Brit rolled over, checked the screen of his mobile, and groaned.

**Gilbert Beilschmidt: **Where r u? Its been 2 hrs at least :P

Arthur's eyebrows crinkled in confusion. _What could he possibly be missing?_

His eyes fell on the worn black case propped up in the corner of his room, his guitar sitting there but beckoning. Beckoning with music.

Arthur groaned and restrained from hitting himself with his mobile. He'd totally forgotten, in the blur of studying for exams and trying (with little success) to cure Alfred's stupidity—here Arthur smiled for no reason, something about the guy just made him laugh. But above it all, he had band practice. _Dear bloody hell_. He had no idea when their next gig was—they didn't _have _a next gig, as far as he knew—and their repertoire was mediocre at best.

But still… there was that same magic, when no one messed up, when Gilbert hit all the high notes just right, Mathias wasn't rushing, when Arthur's fingers didn't fumble for the chords, when it all blended perfectly and sounded _perfect_.

He rolled off his bed, straightened his clothes and grabbed his guitar, and ran. He ran so hard that he nearly collapsed on the floor when he reached the music room.

"Oh, Arthur," chirped Mathias. "You're here. Gilbo and Lizzie and I were talking about how we ought to do the talent show."

"What?" Arthur set his guitar down, then steadied himself on a music stand.

"Okay, first," he began. "_Lizzie_?"

The Hungarian girl waved from her perch on the windowsill. "What's happening, lad?" she said in her best Scouse accent (which sounded horribly wrong to Arthur). He grimaced and crossed his arms.

Gilbert grinned. "If you don't mind."

The Brit just shook his head. "Whatever. But the _talent show?_ Wasn't that in May?"

Mathias shook his head. "Misprint. There's auditions this week and the show's two weeks after that."

Arthur snorted out a quick, contemptuous laugh. "You can't really be serious."

"We are," Gilbert said, crossing his arms. "I want to be able to perform as much as possible. Good exposure and all that."

He had a valid point. Arthur couldn't really argue with that. They had to perform as much as possible, otherwise they'd be out of practice and God knew what would happen to them then.

"Are you _sure_ we couldn't have Jager or Sadik book something for us?" Arthur tried desperately.

"Why don't you want to do the talent show? We've got a good fan base here and everything!" Mathias spun his drumsticks lazily. "I think it'd be a lot of fun."

"So are the clubs," Arthur said. "I'd really rather play in the clubs."

"Yes, but no one would really care because we're just a 'bunch of bloody teenagers,'" said Gilbert sarcastically. "No, I'd rather not make a fool of myself again."

"Jager's out of town anyway," Mathias pointed out. "And this might be our biggest break for now."

Arthur, as much as he wanted to argue (against _playing in the school talent show_) and deliver some brilliant argument reminiscent of some kind of genius, could sense that he was out-reasoned here. He hadn't played a proper show since Berlin, and even that was extremely rough and unpolished.

After a long moment of mental debating, he sighed. "You know what, fine. Sure. We'll play," he mumbled, and Gilbert exploded into cheers.

"Yeahhh!" the German squealed, and fell over laughing.

"Calm down, mate," Mathias said, idly spinning his drumsticks, weaving them between his fingers. "We've still got to audition and take exams and all of that."

"Bloody hell, exams!" Arthur moaned. "No, don't remind me!"

"_Oooooooohhh!_" Mathias rasped in his ear. "_The pressure of the gas is inversely related to its volume as defined by Boyle's law…_"

"Shut up!" Arthur clamped his hands over his ears, but he was laughing hysterically.

"_ONE MOLE IS EQUAL TO SIX POINT-OH-TWO TIMES TEN TO THE TWENTY THIRD POWER PARTICLES!_" Gilbert chanted, and Mathias joined him with cries of "_CAUSES OF WORLD WAR TWO! NATIONALISM, GROWING POWER OF THE NAZI PARTY—_"

"Stop!" Arthur shrieked (which surprised even him) but instead his bandmates jumped him and began tickling his stomach

Lizzie only shook her head slowly. "You three are just a funny, funny lot, aren't you?"

.

The weeks passed without any major incident. All of them passed their exams without too much trouble, including Gilbert, which for Arthur was actually quite surprising, considering the German boy never studied or tried at all in class.

"What's that supposed to mean, 'I didn't fail'?" Gilbert demanded at band practice that week. "I'm awesome, I couldn't _possibly _fail."

And to prove it he waved his test score in their faces, which Arthur had to admit, wasn't half-bad.

"Yeah, it's good, actually, good for us," Mathias remarked. "That way no one has to study for make-up exams and we can stay focused on the talent show."

Arthur groaned. "Still can't believe you talked me into that."

"What's wrong with it?" asked Gilbert tucking his score away.

"It's… just… so amateur," he complained, and picked up his guitar.

"It's not," said Mathias. "We shouldn't try so much on the first go. Not that we shouldn't try hard, but these things take time to build up and be successful. How long do you think the Beatles were together before they became any good at all?"

And Mathias was right. Arthur wasn't particularly fond of that aspect of his friend sometimes, because he rather preferred that he would be right. A stone settled into his stomach then, and he shrugged rather sulkily and turned his attention back to the song.

They practised well over the course of the two weeks leading up to the show. They prepared five different songs but in the end they were only allowed to play one of them. They had to vote on it, and between the three of them it was mostly Gilbert and Arthur arguing over it—the German pushing for his renewed passion of German metal and Arthur for his post-punk indie. But then Mathias put his foot down and told the two of them to stuff it, because well, they were going to play—

"And the next act to come up is The Fantastic Boggle Nerds"—the MC frowned slightly and her voice wavered over their name, at which Gilbert snickered—"playing 'Hello Goodbye' by the Beatles!"

The student body clapped and cheered as the three of them walked onto the stage. Well, Arthur nearly fell down, but he could qualify that as walking, sure. Yeah.

"God, why are there so many of them?" Arthur said through his teeth, more of a statement than a question.

"Gonna puke any moment now," said Mathias, and Arthur saw that he did look slightly green.

"Why're you two so nervous?" the German boy said. "We've played worse crowds, yeah?"

Mathias made a small gagging noise and sat down very, very hard on his stool. Arthur had two seconds to think "Lucky wanker" before Gilbert blew his ears out.

"Hellooooooooo SPQR!" he yelled, his voice blasting through the amps, and Arthur cringed at the feedback.

"My _God_," shouted Arthur, but he didn't yell it into the microphone, so instead it was lost in the cheering.

"It's so awesome to stand up here and play for you all," continued Gilbert, who was either pretending not to hear Arthur's remark or really didn't hear Arthur at all, "so I'll shut up now and get this party started, yeah?"

He was met by more cheers, and as he looked out into the crowd, Arthur didn't seem to be able to see it as his peers anymore. He couldn't pick out anyone, not Alfred F Jones the American, not Francis the Frog, not Bella who was Jager's baby sister, not anyone. The only faces that he could clearly make out were his bandmates', and it seemed to him that Mathias had gotten well over his stage fright as much as he had. Their bright white faces, already beginning to perspire in the heat of the bright lights, blurred and Arthur laughed because well, the fact that they were wearing jeans and jackets wasn't helping at all, but even as he picked up his guitar he saw Gilbert strip his own thick brown jacket off and toss it into the crowd. "I want that back, you hear me?" he yelled into the mike, and was answered by squealing.

Mathias clicked his sticks together at a moderate tempo. "A-one, a-two, a-one, two, three, four!"

"_You say yes, I say no; you say stop—but I say go, go, go!"_ Gilbert sang, and Arthur couldn't help but laugh, because that little line reminded him of their trip to Germany and when Gilbert was pissed and told them to go to Lido. It took him back to days of the rare English sunshine and days out in the London streets and raucous laughter and stupid dancing and even as they were playing, Arthur could see Gilbert drop his bass and start shuffling LMFAO-style, causing more shrieks of laughter to erupted from the audience. Arthur couldn't complain, though, because he was laughing too and in the back Mathias was head-banging like crazy. Then there was the crowd, all a blur of illuminated, smiling faces and clapping and whooping.

"_Hello, hello!_" the words went, _"I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello!_"

Somehow by the end of the song, Gilbert had gotten the entire audience to stand and wave their hands in time with the beat, singing the words with them. _He was mad, _Arthur thought almost dizzily, his fingers playing the same lick over and over again, _but he was dead fantastic, he was._

"_Hello-oh-oh…_" Gilbert let his voice drift away, but his smile did anything but diminish. He laughed to a screaming, stomping crowd and took a small bow. Then he motioned for Arthur and Mathias to come up to the front with him. While Arthur, laughing, walked up to join him, Gilbert took the time to take another extravagant bow, and (it seemed) bent over too far, because to Arthur's horror, he toppled off the high stage into the audience floor, all pale, thin limbs and dark denim…

.

"Sure you're all right, there?" asked Mathias as he stood up from his seat on the train.

"I'm _fine_," insisted Gilbert, but then he nearly tripped over his bass, which was idly lying on the floor.

"Hey, hey!" Arthur said, catching him. "Take it easy, you've got that broken leg and all."

"Don't need to remind me," Gilbert pouted, and glanced down at his neon-pink cast, covered in inky get-well messages. "I feel so bloody useless as it is!"

"It goes away after a while," Mathias said easily. "Come on, let's go."

They staggered (well, it was only Gilbert who staggered, Mathias and Arthur were walking beside him and keeping him steady) off the train and onto the platform, their things in tow. It was, as usual, swarming with people and trolleys and all sorts of official-looking uniformed people, and Arthur's mouth quirked into a smile as the familiar mumbling Scouse accent flooded his ears.

"What're you smiling about?" demanded Gilbert, whose face was flushed pink from struggling to stay upright on his crutches.

Arthur quickly hid his smile. "Nothing," he said quickly. "Just good to be home."

"Got that right," said Mathias. "I've missed this bloody place."

Up ahead Arthur could spot Roma, wearing trendy clothes and that silver cross necklace that had been there since Arthur could remember. The Italian caught sight of him, grinned widely, and began doing a sort of weird side-to-side movement like he was trying to wave to Arthur, but with his entire body instead of just a hand.

"Is that Roma?" asked Mathias, trying to hold in his laughter.

Arthur shielded his eyes and turned the other way. As much as he loved Roma, sometimes he was slightly embarrassed to know the Italian. "All right, if anyone asks," he told his friends in a deadly voice, "_we do not know that man in any way._"

They reached him at a record-breaking slow pace (Arthur was suddenly thankful that Gilbert had crutches) and had barely stopped for a split second when Arthur was enveloped in one of Roma's familiar bear hugs; strong, tomato-scented, and so tight he thought he might pass out.

"Arthur!" Roma cried thickly through Arthur's jacket. "Blimey, it's been forever!"

"It's really only been six months," said Gilbert stupidly, and Arthur could barely hear him through Roma's arms.

"Can't—breathe—" he choked out.

"Oh, sorry, sorry." Roma eased up and leaned back, his tanned face split in a grin. "Aw, you've gotten even cuter since Winter Break! Have the ladies come for you yet?"

"I'm _not _cute, and I _haven't _dated or _anything,_" said Arthur irritably, while Mathias and Gilbert shot him "Yeah, right" smirks.

"Yes, yes, of course," said Roma reasonably, and patted Arthur's shoulder. "Should we get going?"

Arthur jerked his head over to his bandmates, and Roma nodded and moved away.

Arthur looked at the other two and put his hands in the pockets awkwardly. "So, um… I guess this is goodbye. Until September. You know."

Mathias threw his head back and laughed. "What are you talking about? We _live _here. I live in Everton, actually."

"And I live in Toxteth," Gilbert put in.

"Oh. I live in Vauxhall. Er, inner-city," said Arthur, wondering why he gave the location of the filthy Kirkland flat to the other two.

"You know, Arthur, think of it like this"—Mathias raised one finger philosophically. "This isn't goodbye. We'll see each other loads over holiday, yeah? So really"—he grinned at this, like he was making a clever joke—"it's more like hello!"

"_I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello!_" sang Gilbert, as if to accentuate his friend's point.

Arthur groaned. "At this rate, I almost _want _to say good-bye to the lot of you!"

"S'not trueee," Gilbert said. "You love me!"

"And me," added Mathias, and together the two of them jumped Arthur, tickling him everywhere they could reach, which was quite a feat for Gilbert and his broken leg.

"Aghhhh! Stop, please, guys—" but Arthur was laughing because _hell, _he was going to miss these two idiots.

"NO HOMO! NO HOMO!" Gilbert screamed (which attracted his fair share of odd stares).

"All right, lads, ease up there," said Roma's deep voice, and reluctantly Mathias and Gilbert let up. "That's right, come on."

"You know, we've got to get together and have a practice or two, all right?" Mathias said, grinning, and jerked his head towards a couple with blond hair and another very tall boy with severe turquoise eyes and glasses (Arthur thought he recognized him from somewhere at SPQR but he couldn't be sure). "I've gotta jump but ring you soon? Ring you both soon?"

Arthur waved. "Yeah, all right!"

Gilbert waved too. "See ya, lad!"

Mathias grinned and disappeared with the family. Arthur turned to look back at Gilbert, who nodded vaguely. "Actually," he said. "I'm going to be leaving in a week to visit my _Oma _in Germany."

"Seriously?" said Arthur. "How long are you staying there?"

"Pretty much the whole summer." Gilbert said sheepishly. "But don't tell Mathias that."

"Yeah, all right," said Arthur, laughing. "See you in September then?"

"Yeah, hope we both get the same dorm next year, eh?" said Gilbert, grinning at him. He saluted goofily and turned around and walked away, looking back once to stick his tongue out at the Brit.

"So," Roma said, popping up behind him suddenly. "Shall we go?"

Arthur felt all his happiness fade away. "Oh. Yeah."

"You all right there?"

Arthur thought about the flat covered with dirt and grime and ale canes and weed and all the nasty, horrible twins and Rhys in his chemical cloud and Ian with his evil smirk and the dump that just happened to be their bedroom—just thinking about it was making his skin crawl. He didn't want to go home; he never had wanted to go; he didn't want to face it, any of it. God, it was why he'd applied to SPQR in the first place. To get away from all of it. He hadn't even considered the thought of going back every bloody summer and having to deal with it again—

"Arthur?"

Roma was looking at him with an odd expression on his face. Arthur swallowed the bitter anger and nodded. "Yeah," he said shortly. "I'm fine."

He got a funny look, one that Arthur didn't understand. "All right," said the Italian.

They got in Roma's car and began driving. Arthur kept his eyes fixed on the rosary ornament hanging from the rear-view mirror, watching it swing erratically from side to side as the car turned through the streets.

"Arthur, are you sure you're all right?" Roma asked as he turned another corner. "Seriously, lad. Talk to me."

"No," said Arthur. "You talk more like a Scouser now, why?"

"Well, I've been spending a bit more time in Liverpool lately," said Roma. "More local projects, you know. Been a bit busy."

"I see," said Arthur, but he didn't really see at all. Roma was always sort of vague about what he did for a living, but Arthur just assumed he was relatively well-off—the Italian always paying for his things and giving him expensive presents. And not to mention his bloody ginormous flat, which—Arthur frowned—they were pulling up to right then.

"Roma, why are we going to your flat?" Arthur asked.

"You're going to live here."

There was a moment where Arthur couldn't speak. "E-er, I'm sorry, what—no, I live—"

"_Here._" Roma stopped the car. "I took some liberties and made some arrangements."

Arthur stared. "Arrangements?" he echoed dumbly.

"It's rather a long story," said Roma, almost in a strangled voice, "but, er, I'm your, uh, official guardian now."

Arthur couldn't speak. His throat was clogged with something of what it entirely was, but either way, he drew his eyebrows down and opened and closed his mouth stupidly for a few seconds. "Wh—How—" he choked.

Roma just smiled and placed a hand on the Brit's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go."

And Arthur laughed.

They went.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note~<strong>

Final word count: 4218. I'm very happy that these are ending up more and more consistent in length. Fff! :) Yay planning, hahaha. I feel like, though, that there's an awful lot of dialogue in this chapter, too… hrff.

Songs featured: "Hello Goodbye" by the Beatles (durrr)

_En retard, tous les deux vous! Asseyez__-vous! – _Late, both of you! Sit down!

So, uh, reviews? I know this story's becoming ridiculously ordinary/mundane, but **I want to know what you guys want to know about the characters!** Because this story is really character-driven, I think, and even I don't know all that much about Gilbert/Mathias/anyone else, really. So ask? Please? :D


	10. a red holiday

_10. a red holiday_

Arthur Kirkland had never been happier in his entire life.

Every day he would wake up and laugh, something he used to rarely do over holiday. Well, it was more like he never used to laugh at all before September of that year. Not even at Roma's and Feliciano's antics. It was like SPQR had changed him. It was so bloody _worth _it, taking all those painful exams and paying for all the books and board and everything (granted, that was mostly due to Roma's generosity). But it made him happy. The days seemed a bit brighter and the guitar sounded a bit sharper and clearer and his voice smoother and more peaceful. Everything he wrote sounded blissfully happy, very unlike the bitter compositions from before. He didn't mind. He was just so blissfully happy.

He still walked around Liverpool on a regular basis, but he often did so with a faint grin on his face. Often times he would bring a stool and his guitar and finger out popular songs out in the fresh air. He liked the air. He'd spent half his childhood in the bloody air. It gave him energy to do what he did. Some days he'd play old-school classics, like the Beatles or Michael Jackson or someone right famous like that. And then some days it was modern hits, like Adele. He really liked Adele; she had this sort of soul and power and _pain _in her voice, and while they might've been sad they were _good. _Powerful.

He vaguely remembered doing that at SPQR, too. It was sort of like a party trick, he supposed, where someone would shout out a song and if he knew it, he'd play it. Mathias and Gilbert had made kind of a big deal about it, calling it "perfect pitch" or something another. He didn't really care about it too much, not when the two of them asked him what it was like and all of that. It just was.

Aside from all of that, though, he really did miss SPQR. The dorm, the quad, the music room that was so conveniently unused, the sneaking out past curfew. The common rooms on the ground floor of all the dorms that were always so beautifully decorated in the weeks before Christmas—he had pictures of all of it in his room, along with snapshots of Mathias and Gilbo and Francis and Antonio and Bella and Alfred and everyone else.

His room was amazing. Roma had transformed the former music room in his flat into his bedroom—the advantages of having such a spacious, roomy flat—but had left the white grand piano in the room so Arthur could practise. It was extremely convenient; he could just wander over to the piano and harmonise whenever he felt like it. He kind of felt like John Lennon in _Imagine, _playing his great white piano while the sun streamed through the rest of the room, on the turquoise-painted walls and the plain white-sheeted bed. There wasn't much else in the room—a small bedside, a desk, a small closet for his clothes and other worldly possessions. He didn't need much to live, but it was wonderful.

He spent most of the first several weeks of summer holiday in that room, playing on that piano, until one day he decided to break out of his routine a little bit.

That day Arthur woke up to a window of streaming sunlight and warm afternoon breeze. He stretched, yawning slightly and grinned. The time read 15:00 and in that second he made a decision that he would _make dinner._

Feliciano and Lovino weren't in the flat at the time, and neither was Roma; he'd gone out wearing a suit and tie and had told Arthur he was off to a meeting. He wouldn't be able to make dinner like he did normally.

Arthur rolled out of bed, put on some trousers and wandered into the kitchen. The fridge was stocked with fruits and vegetables and cheese like usual, and the pantry consisted of bread and pasta and spices. He wandered between the supplies, wondering what he ought to make.

Then he saw the pot.

.

The door opened just when Arthur had gotten the soup to a nice, steady boil. Or what he hoped was a nice, steady boil.

"Arthur?" Roma shuffled into the kitchen, looking rather sleepy. His large tanned hands were at his collar, undoing the striped tie around his neck.

"Oh, hello," said Arthur brightly, stirring the soup. "What's happening?"

"Long meetings, but it was fun, yeah," Roma said throwing his tie down on the island. His gaze travelled over to the pot. "Oh, what's this? You? Cooking? How kind of you."

"I thought I'd like to try making dinner tonight," said Arthur with a nervous laugh. "You know, because I've never really tried cooking and all…"

Roma leaned over. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to an oddly-shaped white lump bobbing suspiciously in the solution.

Arthur prodded the lump so that it disappeared back underneath the bubbling broth. "Nothing!" he said a little quickly. "Nothing, it's nothing."

Roma raised an eyebrow at the Brit. "Oh, really?" he asked.

"Y-yes!" Arthur stammered. "It's edible, I swear!"

"_Nonno, Nonno!_" chimed in a new voice and Feliciano flounced into the kitchen, Lovino trailing him with his usual grumpy expression. "_Nonno, _how did your meeting go?"

"Ah, Feliciano, ciao ciao," said Roma affectionately. "The meeting went very well; what about you?"

But the young Italian seemed more interested in what was in Arthur's pot. "Ah!" he cried happily over his shoulder. "What are you making?"

Arthur quickly covered the pot. "Uh, soup."

Feliciano's face fell slightly. "No pasta?"

"Er—I can't make pasta," said Arthur lamely.

Lovino mumbled something darkly under his breath. He was somehow very angry in the several weeks since Arthur had moved in, angrier than Arthur had seen before. In fact, when Roma left the flat, the Italian was often heard in his room, screaming various profanities in Italian (of which Arthur had learned a little bit) and stomping around angrily. It certainly didn't do much for the people that lived below them.

He retained that anger at dinner, where Arthur poured the contents of the pot into four bowls, one for each of them. They sort of sat in there, steaming, while Roma, Feliciano, and Lovino stared at it with the oddest expressions on their faces.

Arthur sat down with his own bowl. "Well?" he demanded. "Aren't you going to eat?"

Roma flushed red (much to Arthur's surprise) and fumbled awkwardly for his spoon. "Yes—yes, of course," he said hurriedly, and swallowed a mouthful of soup. Feliciano and Lovino, after exchanging awkward glances, were slightly less hasty to dig in, but they both raised their spoons to their mouths.

As soon as he could talk, Feliciano started crying. "This is _horrible!_" he burst out, his voice catching slightly. "I don't want to eat any more!"

Lovino stood up abruptly and immediately ran for the bathroom.

"I'm sorry, they've always been picky eaters," Roma apologized, but Arthur didn't hear them because he'd just taken a sip of the stuff he'd made and while his taste buds were relatively… open to different tastes, even he had to admit that, well, this was nasty, nasty stuff.

"Arthur, are you all right?" Roma said, and Arthur, his eyes watering from the absolutely horrible taste, shook his head. "Well, then we should just toss this into the rubbish bin and then go out to eat, all right?" The Italian stroked Arthur on the back until the Brit's eyes stopped watering.

"Thanks," Arthur muttered softly and Roma smiled.

"Well, then, let's get going, yeah?" Roma patted Arthur on the back. "Feliciano, Lovino, we're going out for Japanese! Sushi! Brush your teeth and let's go!"

Arthur's mouth dropped open. "But I've never tried—"

Roma winked. "Now's your chance. Come on."

.

The restaurant was small, but elegantly decorated, with hints of traditional Japanese rice paper screens and vases and flowers set up everywhere. Arthur, Roma, Feliciano and Lovino were seated at a rather secluded round table in the back. In front of them, there were assembled plates of raw fish wrapped up in dried seaweed paper, along with rice smeared with soy sauce and green wasabi paste, little orange balls in little piles on top of the fish—those were fish eggs, Roma told them.

Arthur looked slightly dubiously at the plates. "I don't know if I want to try any of this…"

Lovino, who was holding up a piece of white tuna to his mouth, suddenly slammed his chopsticks down angrily. "What's the point of going out for sushi if you don't fucking _eat _any?"

Roma shot a warning look at Lovino. "Language, Lovi," he scolded. "And you can't force him to eat anything he doesn't want to."

"Oh, really?" snarled Lovino. "What's the fairness in that?"

"Sorry?" Roma frowned, while Feliciano, on the far edge, trembled, his eyes shiny with water. (The little wanker could cry so bloody easily.)

"Do I need to remind you?" Lovino growled. "You were the one who made us he made his fucking _nasty _soup, which, if ou can't remember, made me vomit for _ten bloody minutes!_"

His voice rose above the din inside the dimly restaurant that everyone in the room turned to look and stare. Arthur could feel his face burning, while Roma still had a look of mild disappointment or mild confusion, Arthur couldn't tell.

"Lovino—" Roma said sharply, but his grandson barrelled on.

"No!" he shouted, slamming his palms on the table and standing up. "No! _He _always gets everything! _He _gets to have everyone eat his fucking nasty soup; _he_ gets the huge room with a piano in it; _he _gets everything that he asks for and what do your real _blood _relatives get? _Nothing! Jack shit!_"

Roma had nothing to say, evidently, but he was as clearly shocked and dumbfounded by Lovino's outburst.

"And _you!_" Lovino whirled on Arthur, who froze. "You, you're just here because my sodding bastard of a grandfather"—here Roma opened his mouth to say something, maybe to protest but was cut across again by his grandson—"took pity on you and your fucking sorry excuse of a family! Why? Because you can play shit on guitar and half-carry a tune! Mediocrity and call it talent! Guess what? _Talent isn't everything. _So you know what, just don't even try! Don't even_ try_ you fucking bastard!"

He stood there for another split second, glaring angrily at Arthur and then turned on his heel, marching off towards the back of the restaurant.

Arthur felt his legs move as the tears tickled the back of his eyes; they carried him outside, pushing past other customers and into the warm late-July air. He stumbled on the pavement and somehow slumped into a sitting position on the curb, trying hard not to cry in public, not to cry in front of the people walking past him. It stung though, Lovino's words, and it was requiring all of his effort to hold it together. Fuck it, why was he so easily _damaged? _It was like at any single word of discouragement, he'd shatter as easily as a toppled china vase or as a smashed egg. And Lovino's words somehow cut especially deep because he was true; he could feel it in his gut. What else would they be, really?

"Arthur? Arthur!" Roma's large hand settled on his shoulder. "Arthur, please look at me."

Roma's fingers pushed the Brit's chin up, and Arthur was forced to look up into Roma's amber eyes, round with concern.

"Arthur," he said quietly amidst the buzz of traffic and people. "Lovino—what he said isn't true. I didn't take you in because I took pity on you and your family. I took you because I loved you and didn't want you to spend any more time in that bloody awful household. You have talent. You have talent, more than you or maybe some people around you realize. You are a brilliant, wonderful young man destined for great things, and I want to do everything I can to help you get there. All right?"

Arthur wrapped his arms around Roma. "All right," he told his mentor through the fleece jacket on Roma's stomach. "All right."

Roma squeezed back briefly. "Now, let's go back there and have ourselves some sushi, all right?"

.

A couple weeks after the dinner at the sushi restaurant, after everything had settled down at the Vargases' flat, Mathias rang him. Arthur was, again, home alone and so, tired and just-awake from his nap, so when his mobile began singing "Machu Picchu" by the Strokes he reached groggily for it, slamming his bedside several times before actually grabbing it

"Hello?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Arthur!" came the emphatic reply, and Arthur cringed—_God, _was Mathias loud. "Hey, Artie? How's your holiday been?"

"It's been shit, you just woke me up from a nap," grumbled the guitarist, and Mathias laughed.

"Come on, I haven't called you all summer because ah, we went to Sweden for about two weeks," said Mathias, his voice drifting away in the way that people's voices did when recounting things. "I forgot about that. You know. I realized that my aunts have really funny accents but—"

"Just get to the point. What do you want?" Arthur said exasperatedly, and rolled over on his bed, shutting his eyes.

"Right, well anyway. There's a Man United/Liverpool match coming up soon and Berwald's being a total arse and doesn't want to go even though the League opens with _Man United and Liverpool at Anfield_," Mathias practically yelled into his ear. "D'you want to come? It's this Saturday."

Arthur sighed deeply and looked out the window. "So when is it exactly? Like, times."

"Well, kick-off is at 12:45 so maybe come over at, I dunno, 11:00?" There was rustling on the other side of the phone. "We'll have lunch at the game, they'll have food. Tell your parents not to worry."

"Guardian," Arthur corrected a little stingily. "And it's Roma."

"Oh." Mathias paused. "Well, that's great. Congrats."

"You make it sound like we're dating or something," griped Arthur drily, and Mathias burst out laughing—and he couldn't stop for at least five minutes, drawing Arthur in to his laughter too.

"Ohhh man," Mathias said, his voice cracking slightly from laughing so much, "that was brilliant, Arthur. Really got a way with words there."

"Oh, piss off," Arthur said, but he was grinning. It'd been a while since he'd had a good laugh with his mates. And this felt good.

"So, yeah, tomorrow at eleven then?" Mathias said. "I live in Everton."

Arthur sighed. "Yeah sure, why not." But he was looking forward to it. Kind of.

And that was why, the next day, at eleven o'clock precisely Arthur found himself standing at a rather large house on the east side of Liverpool with only his mobile and wallet and a growing sense of unease. He rang the doorbell tentatively and was answered by heavy steps.

The door of the house opened, a stern-looking tall boy with blond hair and turquoise eyes framed by rectangular glasses appeared.

"Who're you?" he mumbled—Arthur wasn't just sure if this was just him, but the way the boy said it was downright intimidating.

"A-A-Arthur Kirkland," the Brit stammered. "I'm here for Mathias."

"Oh." The boy turned back into the house, closing the door slightly. Arthur stood awkwardly a little longer outside the house until loud, thumping steps announced Mathias's arrival.

"Artie! Oh, man, it's been so long!" said Mathias, nearly knocking Arthur over with the force of his hug (_force times acceleration_, Arthur thought vaguely).

"Yeah, hey," Arthur choked out, and patted the Dane's back. "Let me up?"

"Oh, right," said Mathias. "Well, come in, yeah? Come on."

And Arthur was dragged inside their house, which was huge and fancily decorated—the living room was mostly empty space and light and fancy decorated walls. Mathias walked straight past that, though, and into the kitchen, where the cabinets and tables had little embellishments—all of it was making Arthur dead uneasy, because, well, Roma's flat might've been rather posh compared to where he grew up, but this… well this was just screaming _rich._ He started to wonder vaguely what Mathias's parents did for a living, exactly, until he ran into a wall. Then he figured eh ought to pay more attention to where he was going.

They ended up in Mathias's room, which was huge and very red. Everything, from the bedspread to the drawers to the desk to the telly to the walls and blinds—they were all shades of red, muted red (Arthur supposed to not hurt the eyes) with accents of bright, supersaturated red.

Arthur sat down on a stray plush chair. "Doesn't this… décor get a little rough on the eyes sometimes?"

"No," replied Mathias's voice, which seemed to be coming from the closet-bathroom complex. "And don't come in here yet!"

Arthur shrugged, then remembered Mathias couldn't see him. "All right. Er, who was the boy who answered the door?"

"Oh, Berwald." Mathias poked his head out of the bathroom, which had streaks of red all over it—on his face and ears and hair. "Yeah, he can be kind of a tosser sometimes. He's my stepbrother."

"Stepbrother?"

"Yeah. Me dad married his mum. They're very happy. Waldy, not so much."

"_Waldy_?"

"Yeah. Dunno how it came about but we used to fight a lot when we were younger. You know—" Mathias poked his head out again, pointing to a dark line on his shoulder, "—this was from him. Nasty fight, that was."

"Looks nasty," said Arthur, cringing slightly.

"Was." Mathias popped back into his bathroom. "He was pretty unforgiving back then. I prolly was, too, you know."

"Oh."

"Math's." Berwald glowered (or was that just Arthur) from the doorway. "Yer dad's leav'ng now."

"_Shit_!" the Dane yelled form inside. "Can you ask him to wait five more minutes? Please please please?"

The look on Berwald's face hardened. "Yer like a g'rl," he mumbled darkly. "Spoil'd and ann'ying. Alw'ys get'chr way."

And with that he disappeared, leaving Arthur very confused. Then Mathias popped out of the bathroom wearing straight red from head to toe (face paint, socks, and shoes included). He then promptly shoved a Liverpool FC shirt in Arthur's hands. "Put it on!" he insisted. And Arthur did, sensing Mathias's inner crazy-football-fan coming out, did so. It wasn't as if Arthur had grown up around crazy football fanatics, but he'd seen one very disturbing display during some of the international exhibition games on the telly at the Vargases' household. And, well, it was something along the lines of memorable.

"Heyy!" Mathias cried out in surprise. "You look very very fit!" *

Arthur raised a thick eyebrow. "I'll pretend that's not weird at all."

"Oh, shut up," Mathias said easily. "Aren't you queer? I mean, it's perfectly all right."

"Just because I kissed a boy doesn't mean I like it," said Arthur defensively.

Mathias shrugged and they piled into the car to drive to the stadium.

.

Anfield was packed with people when the car pulled up. They didn't even park at Anfield; they parked a little ways over, at Stanley Park, and had to walk a good distance to the actual gates.

"So many people!" Arthur muttered to Mathias in a slightly horrified voice. He snuck a glance at a group of raucously hooting young men, evidently drunk already, even though it was only just past noon. "I don't really like the looks of this."

"You never been to a football match, Arthur?" asked Mathias's dad (who really just looked like an older version of him, minus the crazy hair).

"No. I've only seen them on the telly."

"Oh, man, this'll be fantastic, then," Mathias said, grinning wickedly. He looked a bit like Gilbert and Arthur's stomach didn't seem to settle at all.

"Why?" he asked, slightly dreading the answer. "How?"

"Because," said Mathias, "Man United and Liverpool at Anfield? Oh man, Arthur, you've got to be the luckiest bastard in the entire city!"

"Still don't get it."

"You will soon," the Dane assured him. "You will."

The seats were such a violent red that Arthur felt uneasy sitting in them, but they had a reasonably good spot (smack-dab in the middle, across from the centre circle, with clear views of both goals) so he wasn't about to complain. He did, though, wonder how much money it cost for these seats.

It was rather boring to sit there while there were announcements and random people wandering all over the soccer pitch so he took out his mobile and texted all sorts of stupid messages to Gilbert and Bella (with whom he'd exchanged numbers at the end of term in June). He wasn't quite comfortable with Antonio and Francis, despite getting to know them reasonably well through Gilbert, but he didn't like either of them enough to ask for the numbers. He was a little worried about what they would text back. Knowing the frog he'd probably send pictures of his cock or something disgusting like that.

(_Although that probably wouldn't be true at all,_ a small voice at the back of Arthur's head said. _He's not a complete arse._

_Shut up,_ Arthur told it.)

"Hey, Arthur," asked Mathias suddenly. "Have you heard from Gilbert lately? I've tried to ring him but he never picks up."

Arthur hid a grin. "Really?"

"Yeah. And he keeps tweeting about doing stuff with his cousin Will, but Will lives in Germany…" Mathias frowned, deep in thought. "He couldn't be in Germany, could he? Gone and not've told me?"

Arthur shrugged. He hadn't expected the Dane to be quite this dim, but he figured Mathias would learn the truth soon enough. "I s'pose. It's, you know, entirely plausible."

Mathias gave a small grunt of agreement. "Yeah… oh, the game's _finally _starting!"

Arthur sat up slightly, watching as the players ran out onto the pitch. He'd seen this sort of thing on the telly, thanks to the Vargases (Roma, surprisingly enough, was a Chelsea fan), but the excitement here in Anfield, was electric and cold and alive and when they kicked off Arthur felt himself yelling and grinning with all the other fans around him. It was fantastic, just like Mathias said. When the opposing team scored a goal, he yelled angrily, as loud as Mathias next to him, as loud as the Liverpudlians around them. The Reds stomped and screamed for their team, but by half-time Man United still led them 1-0.

During half-time Mathias's father bought them both hot dogs—mustard and onions for Mathias, and ketchup for Arthur. They sat and ate, sweltering slightly in the unusually warm weather ("It's the global warming rubbish going around," said Mr. Kohler good-naturedly) and bantering about, well, whatever. Arthur couldn't help but glance up at the sky. For once it was white clouds drifted sparsely across clear blue, instead of its usual thick gray foggy drizzly cover.

As the second half opened, a song began playing on the loudspeaker. Kind of slow and soft, with piano in the background, piano arpeggios and a soft hi-hats harmonizing to the melody. Mathias seemed to have a spasm next to him.

"Arthur you lucky, bastard, you _lucky bastard,_" he yelled, and as he spoke, a swell of voices grew from the side of the stadium they sat on, the home side. Mathias joined them, his blue eyes closed in passion (which Arthur thought was really just odd).

_When you walk through a storm  
>Hold your head up high<br>And don't be afraid of the dark_

_At the end of the storm  
>There's a golden sky<br>And the sweet silver song of a lark_

_Walk on through the wind  
>Walk on through the rain<br>Though your dreams be tossed and blown_

_Walk on, walk on  
>With hope in your heart<br>And you'll never walk alone  
>You'll never walk alone…<em>

Mathias was practically sobbing as people around them held up their red-and-white striped scarves. Arthur awkwardly patted the Dane's shoulder as Mathias wiped his face, smearing the runny red paint on his hands.

"Oh, man, Arthur," he said, his voice cracking . "It's just, oh man, this song always makes me cry—"

"All right, it's all right," said Arthur, hoping he didn't sound to hasty. "But let's just, uh, watch the game?"

He really wasn't very good at that kind of thing, the whole comforting thing, but luckily Mathias seemed to calm down enough to watch the rest of the match like a normal person (or as much normal as Arthur could hope for).

Liverpool managed to score twice ("Twice! _Twice!_" Mathias would later tell him) in the second half, one of the goals in the two minutes of overtime. The match ended Man United 1-2 Liverpool. Which made Mathias very happy. He was bouncing with happiness as they walked back to the car

"This is the best opening day ever!" he declared to Arthur, laughing, and the Brit only shrugged. He didn't mind football too much, but he wasn't a huge fan of it either.

They dropped him off at Roma's flat complex and Mathias stuck his head out the car window.

"I'll see you on the train to SPQR in a couple weeks, yeah?" he yelled.

Arthur grinned. "Yeah, you will," he shouted waving. "See you then!"

When the Kohler's car drove off, he turned to climb up the stairs to the flat, humming the song from the match.

He decided he rather liked it.

_You'll never walk alone…_

* * *

><p><strong>author's note<strong>

Happy Boxing Day, guys :D Sorry for the late update; some stuff sort of got in the way. In the meantime I've published two oneshots (one of them steel strings verse) and the first chapter of another series that I wanted to start. What am I doing.

(You can find the steel-strings oneshot on d-encre. tumblr. com. Minus spaces. The story's called 'a proper christmas' because I was uncreative with titles.)

Songs featured: "You'll Never Walk Alone" – Gerry and the Pacemakers  
>- - Salute to Liverpool FC; Reds forever! (heart) I've totally become a Liverpool fan. (Which is rather annoying since there's a kid in my English class who wears a Man United jersey every single day. Oh dear.)<p>

_Final word count: _4297. Happiness.

So. Two questions:

**1) Spamano, yes/no? **I'm wondering if I can properly fit it into the story; if enough people want it I might fit it in ;)

**2) If someone would explain to me how the applying to colleges in the UK / GCSEs / secondary school thing works, that'd be greatly appreciated. **I asked my mom, who lived in Hong Kong while it was still British, and she went off into a whole bunch of things about O-levels, which I'm fairly certain don't exist anymore, so… It'd be a really great help for upcoming chapters—so thank you! (heart)


	11. them artsy oldschool beatniks

_11. them artsy old school beatniks_

"So everything seems in order," said the counsellor, pushing her red glasses farther up her nose. She peered at him over the frames. "Except…"

Arthur folded his hands in his lap and waited patiently. He didn't know what was coming but what was the worst that could come out of this? Surely she wouldn't say anything, this little petite frame of a woman. She was a bit cute, too, in a school-girlish sort of way, with a high-necked blouse and hair swept into a braid. Arthur tried not to grin creepily. "Yes?"

"I think… it seems that you don't have an GCSE art class?" She looked up. "You were signed up for one but never received any credits for the first year?"

Arthur swallowed. "Oh, well, uh…"

The truth was he didn't have any good excuse for not going to art class. He was just ditching. They never did anything interesting in primary school art class, so it wasn't as if they were about to do so now. He didn't have time for it, anyway. It was an hour wasted and better spent working out a Hendrix riff or a Zombies classic. He hadn't even sat the exam last year. Hopefully it was all right…?

"Would you like for me to schedule it for you? There's the possibility that you'll have to do extra work to get your full credit but it's a good course to have, really."

Arthur hesitated. She was looking at him very expectantly, like if he said no, then that flash of judgement and disdain that always made his stomach twist was inevitable. God knew he'd had enough of that look so he nodded, regretting it immediately when she nodded with a somehow sickeningly satisfied smile.

"Now then," she said, after hitting several keys on the keyboard and swiping a piece of paper from the printer, handing it to him, "this is your schedule. I believe that the first hour begins in three minutes, so run along!"

Evidently he'd been underestimating the power of counsellor ladies because she then stood up and practically shoved him out into the hallway. Probably because of his lip ring or something. God, did everyone have to judge because of that stupid steel thing? Arthur gingerly took it out as he hurried to get to class on time, grumbling angrily in his head.

The hallways were fairly clear now, quiet except for the occasional lagging student running to get to class on time. Arthur quickened his own pace, climbed the stairs, and smiled vaguely as he passed the spot where last year Gilbert had graffitied "SEXY AND I KNOW IT" onto the wall. Arthur smirked slightly at the thought that they hadn't figured out how to remove the black letters yet and turned onto the second floor. He consulted his schedule again, just to be sure.

_Room 2203… 2204… 2205… _

At room 2206 he stopped and walked in. A crowd of students sat there already, their pencils and erasers assembled on the large wooden desks. They looked up with supercilious eyes, spinning their pencils sort of like how Mathias spun his own drumsticks. Arthur set his jaw and walked through. He found a seat comfortably near the window and settled down on the stool, dropping his bag on the linoleum floor, stowing his phone and iPod away.

"Well, fancy seeing you here," said a familiar voice, and Arthur nearly dropped his expensive Sony headphones. He knew who was talking, but even still he turned around to face the speaker.

Francis Bonnefoy, blazer buttoned, tie undone, shirt un-tucked, settled himself down on the adjacent stool and ran his hands through his blond hair. If it wasn't Arthur's imagination, everything about him seemed more obnoxious than usual—his French accent more pronounced than before; the way he slouched in his chair like he didn't give a damn about his spine, his slightly sleepy expression in profile. His blue eyes and blond hair looked a shade lighter, and his skin a shade darker.

Arthur realised he was staring.

"Yeah, well, I don't really want to be here," he muttered quickly, shifting his attention back onto putting his earphones in his bag.

Francis shrugged. "I'm not going to ask any questions about that. On another note, how was your summer?"

Arthur fiddled with his headphones, deciding whether or not to answer the question. He settled for "It was all right. You?"

"Pretty ordinary, actually," said Francis, smiling, and Arthur tried not to squirm. _In disgust of course._ "I went back to France to visit family and did summer homework. Painted a bit. You know."

"Whatever," said Arthur, fixing his eyes on the front of the room, because the teacher had walked in as the bell rang. She immediately began talking about projects and rules and GCSEs and suddenly Arthur began to be irritated with the fact that he was in _GCSE year now. _Everyone made such a big fuss over it, that and going to sixth-form college and then applying to uni and dammit, what with all these stupid exams and stupid projects. And there was the fact that he had to do two years' worth of coursework for a bloody _stupid_ art class of all things, on top of everything else. Why did he take so many stupid courses this year?

Francis was watching him out of the corner of his eye, smiling like he could hear Arthur's tirade against the British education system. Arthur flipped him off angrily under the desk, throwing in a scowl for good measure.

The French boy merely looked amused more than anything else, and picked up a pencil and wrote in thin, elegant handwriting:

_Art isn't as bad as you make it out to be, lapin._

Arthur scowled again and scrawled back on his own paper.

_Fuck off, frog. I don't do art._

Francis raised an eyebrow, writing another sentence underneath the first one.

_Music is art. Don't be stupid._

The Brit threw a glower in the other boy's direction, but Francis had turned his attention back on the lecturing teacher. Arthur scoffed slightly, and scratched his head. It was getting a bit long; maybe he ought to get it cut or something.

Suddenly Francis got up and walked away, towards the back of the room where there was a counter of sinks.

"Where're you—" he began, then realised that everyone else was crowded around the counters too, so he hurried to follow suit. It seemed like the queue for lunch, a bit, with everyone holding white trays with indented rectangles in them, and bottles being passed around. Except the bottles were full of paint and no one was going to eat them.

"What's going on?" he muttered to Francis under his breath.

"We're getting paint. And canvas paper, too," Francis replied, pointing to another queue at the back table where the teacher was handing out ginormous pieces of heavy-looking paper.

"What for?"

"For our first painting project, _lapin_," Francis said teasingly, and Arthur scowled.

"Don't call me that!"

"And you have to paint someone who is important to you. You're welcome," he continued in that somehow obnoxious way of his, and Arthur crossed his arms.

"Why do we have a project already?" he demanded.

Francis shrugged. "It's GCSE year, I suppose."

The bell rang after they'd gotten paper and everyone went to gather up their things and began to leave. Some people stayed behind, though, like Francis, and made no move that they were going to leave. Arthur frowned as he put his pencil case away. "Don't you have another class next hour?" he asked.

"No, I've got a free period," said Francis, "but I'm going to work on this." He put in one earphone and tapped his iPod several times.

"Oh. Who're you going to paint?" asked Arthur, not knowing why he even bothered asking at all.

Francis only smiled mysteriously. "You'll see."

The Brit made a face. "Well, I'm off. See you around."

"You too." Francis raised his pencil, like a salute.

It was ten minutes after he left that Arthur realised he'd just let himself have a completely civilised conversation with the frog.

.

Oddly enough, Arthur was starting to enjoy his art class. And art. In general.

He wasn't sure why it was only beginning to emerge now, even after having taken classes in primary school, but he supposed maybe it was a bit like learning guitar? He didn't dwell on it too much, though. Instead he doodled in every free moment he could find, in every soporific lecture: eyes, faces, hands. The more he did it the better he got, though not so much for his marks, but at the end of the month he was able to draw a face fairly well with just a pencil.

For his project, the painting project, he painted Roma. Because he could. At the end he thought that it didn't turn out as well as he'd like. There were so many colours, it was browns and siennas and ochres and yellows and golds and pinks and peaches but with a trace of white and cool mint. The effect, to him, was a bit jarring and odd and a bit awkward, but lots of people seemed to really like it, including the teacher, including Francis.

Francis. Well, after the first day, Arthur still hated him dearly but he was unbelievably fun to fight with. They were good sparring partners, always trying to better the other, always coming up with better lines and bits of witticism that Arthur wrote down, for sake of really brilliant lines. Who knew, they might end up as brilliant lyrics one day.

They did more paintings after that. Some days Arthur would just sit in the classroom and paint because he could, because he liked to. Painting… the colours, the textures, te odd quiet calm that came when he was utterly and completely absorbed with his painting; if music was his drug that energised him, then painting was his tranquiliser that relaxed his mind and made him dream. And when he dreamt, he wrote music and it sounded amazing. They played shows better than before, and when they played Arthur would paint their posters: bold logos and dark silhouettes and huge letters FBN splashed across it.

They had a sort of intensifying effect on each other, music painting. When he painted, music made it better, and when he played music, he could close his eyes and visualise colours and lights and angles and form and it was fantastic. He saw colour everywhere now, not just when he painted. He dressed with more attention—these colours couldn't go together, he couldn't wear these earrings with that, he couldn't wear the same skinny jeans for every weekend out.

Then there was the matter of his hair. Which had started to bother him again, because it was blond and boring again.

"Gilbert," he said one day, trying to sound casual. "D'you think I should dye my hair again?"

The German looked up from his physics textbook, rubbing his neck and rolling his head back—Arthur wasn't surprised he did this; he'd been bent over in the same position for nearly half an hour. "Dye your hair?" he echoed.

"Yeah."

Gilbert flicked his eyes up to the ceiling. "I dunno. Why not?"

Arthur tugged his fringe. "You know what, I will. What time is it?"

"Uhh…" Gilbert checked his watch. "Just after noon."

"Good." Arthur slid off his bed. "Let's go."

"Where?" asked his dorm mate, looking alarmed.

"London. To get hair dye."

"Really?"

"Yeah. What, d'you think it'd just appear out of nowhere?"

Gilbert cocked his head. "Hm… should I dye my hair?"

"Would your mum… be all right with that?" asked Arthur, raising an eyebrow.

"As long as it washes out, she won't have to know."

"True enough," Arthur said agreeably, and made for the door.

They stopped by Mathias's dorm to invite the Dane on their outing, and he gladly went along with them, expressing rather vociferously his annoyance at the maths teacher for assigning so much homework, and Arthur thought suddenly of his ten-page essay for literature, several long and difficult trigonometry problems to work out, twenty pages on the WWII air raids to read for history, and a lab report in chemistry and biology, of all things. What an awful load of homework to get through for the weekend.

They managed to find a drugstore after saying hi to Jager and Sadik (as usual) and walked in.

"What colour should I go for this time?" mused Arthur.

"Red."

"Mathias, I was red last time."

"Yes, but it _suits _you."

"Please don't tell me it's because of the whole Liverpool thing."

"It's not."

"Yes it is."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"You should do black," said Gilbert, rubbing his hands together. "It'd look really cool."

Arthur, with another playful glare at Mathias, who was still pointing to the red box, snatched the black one. "Black it is. What're you going to get, Gilbo?"

The German had a nasty sort of smirk on his face. "_Pink_."

"Like 'A Study In Pink'!" Mathias joked. Arthur didn't understand it, but Gilbert's mouth dropped wide open.

"NO WAY," he gasped. "YOU WATCH SHERLOCK?"

"Er, yeah." Mathias shrugged. "Yeah, it's pretty good."

"OH MY BLOODY GOD LET ME LOVE YOU FOR-BLOODY-EVER—" Gilbert proceeded to then hug (or was 'assault' the right word?) Mathias extremely tightly with such a force that nearly knocked the Dane over. Mathias squirmed.

"Gerroff me!" he protested but Gilbert didn't let go.

"I'M NOT EVEN JOKING RIGHT NOW," Gilbert yelled. "OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WATCHED IT EARLIER?"

"I—uh—"

"Gilbert!" Arthur said loudly. "For God's sake, calm _down!_"

"NOOOOOOO I WON'T!" screamed the German.

"It's just a bloody TV show…"

"IT'S NOT A _JUST _A BLOODY TV SHOW, MATHIAS, IT'S A WAY OF LIFE—"

"Gilbert," Arthur said, his head starting to hurt a little bit. "_We're leaving._"

"FUCK YOU, I WON A BAFTA—"

"What is he going on about?" Arthur asked Mathias under his breath.

"Haven't got a clue," the Dane muttered back.

"MARTIN FREEMAN IS MADE OF JAM AND KITTENS AND RAGE—"

.

"God, god, god, should I do it or not?" Gilbert said, agonisingly turning the box over and over in his hands. "Pink hair… _pink hair._"

"You've already bought the box, lad," said Mathias, spinning his drumsticks between his fingers (why he brought them along, Arthur had no idea). "Go dye your hair already."

"It doesn't hurt," joked Arthur, who was without a shirt and working blackish goo through his hair. Goopy black strands stuck out in various directions, and the whole bathroom smelled of hair dye, which wasn't all that pleasant. Gilbert had pulled his t-shirt over his nose, making his voice sound very muffled.

"Yeah, okay, but _pink_," said Gilbert, putting one hand over his hair, like he was afraid the colour was going to jump out of the box and attack his head. "I like my blond hair."

"It's not blond; it's white," remarked Mathias.

"Yeah, it was always an unnatural colour to begin with," added Arthur. "Pink's really not much further."

Gilbert stole one last look at the box then thrust it away from him. "All right," he said, slapping a palm over his eyes. "Have at it. Dye my hair."

"My hands are full, lad," said Arthur, laughing.

"I was talking to _Mathias_," Gilbert said, eyes still hidden behind his hand.

The drummer got up and took the box. "All right. First, you might want to take off your shirt, just so you don't get pink stains on it…"

Gilbert hesitated for a minute, then did as Mathias said.

Arthur watched as Gilbert self-consciously crossed his arms, but not before he caught a glimpse of a web of dark marks on the German's pale skin.

"Gilbert?" he asked quietly. "What's… what's that on your arms?"

Gilbert's face was a carefully composed mask of calm. "Nothing."

His voice shook slightly.

There was a silent moment in the bathroom. Mathias slowly took Gilbert's wrist and pried his arm away so they could see.

A series of dark lines ran all along Gilbert's forearm, creating a ghastly bar code of sorts all the way to his shoulders, where it ended with a crudely drawn X. They were blotchy and swollen and ranged from brownish to white, twisting and creeping in jagged patterns over his skin. Gilbert didn't meet either of his bandmates' eyes.

"Gilbert," Arthur said softly, trying to say something, anything. He wanted desperately to ask why. How. But the look in Gilbert's face was so raw and vulnerable that the words stuck in his throat. The German was shaking on his perch on the stool, his still-outstretched hands trembling in the air. His eyes were closed again, but this time there was no playfulness in it. Just pain.

"You know, forget it," he said to Mathias and Arthur, snatching away the box. "I'll just—dye my hair another weekend."

He grabbed his shirt and ran out the door.

.

The next following days in the dorm were spent in intense silence. Gilbert would only speak or look at him when he requested something, and they knew each other so well that they rarely ever did it anymore. So in all it really wasn't much of anything in terms of communication. Instead the German opted to study and do homework by himself, or in Francis's and Antonio's dorm, which was in a different building altogether. The only times he was really ever in their dorm was when he was practising his bass or sleeping.

In turn, Arthur went to Alfred's dorm more often, usually to talk and do homework and have a good laugh—he couldn't stand any more tense atmosphere, not after all the years in the Kirkland flat. Alfred was a brilliant change from that, making faces and cracking jokes and generally making himself look stupid, but he was charming and funny and brought a smile to Arthur's face.

Then he'd return to his dorm and see Gilbert just fingering bass lines all by himself. And one day the words just sort of flew out of Arthur's mouth without him thinking.

"Do Francis and Antonio know?"

Gilbert looked up; his eyes had been trained on the fingerboard.

"Yeah," he managed finally. "I don't… I forgot. That they were there… the scars."

He had, it seemed to Arthur, to force himself to say the word. _Scars._

Arthur sat patiently.

"After my dad died… I don't know, I just…" Gilbert looked out the window. "It just happened."

He put down his bass. "I'm sorry for not telling you before," said Gilbert, meeting Arthur's gaze. "I mean, I don't do it anymore, I don't!"

"I know you don't," said Arthur. _You're far too happily insane to do it still._

"It's just… I dunno." Gilbert shrugged.

"I understand that you'd want to keep it a secret, really," Arthur insisted. "It's not something I'd want to blurt out to the world either."

"That, and…" Gilbert scrutinized his English friend with squinted eyes. "You look a bit freaky with black hair."

"Ah, yes," Arthur said, cracking half a smile. "Speaking of hair."

.

The issue of Gilbert's cutting all but vanished when the pink dye was applied on his head, sticking to it in messy pink clumps. Arthur was playing with it, making weird little cowlicks and spelling out random words with bits of hair.

"Stop it, I look like Sonic the Hedgehog," Gilbert whined, slapping away Arthur's hands.

The Brit checked the timer. "Well, I'll start the timer now. Thirty minutes. Want to get started on that history project?"

"Oh, _god_," Gilbert groaned, but he opened his textbook and his notes. "I don't see why we have to care about"—he glanced at his scribbling—"Henry VIII and all his bloody wives. I mean, everyone's dead anyway."

"It's important to know the heritage of the British nation in order to plough a path to the future,'" Arthur said in his best BBC accent, mocking their uptight history teacher, and Gilbert fell over laughing. Well, as much as he could, really, without getting hair dye everywhere, but he did bury his face in his hands. When he sat up straight again, pink dye stained his fingertips and forehead.

"Gilbert, you've got pink all over you," remarked Arthur, and Gilbert looked into the wall of mirrors.

"Dammit, why does this always happen to me?" Gilbert said, heaving a slight sigh. "Oh well… this stuff washes out, right?"

"Yeah, it does," Arthur said, brushing back his black hair to the side. He focused back on the textbook. "How do you want to start this?"

Somewhere between the talk of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment the timer went off. Gilbert let out a yell, and stripped off his trousers (Arthur averted his eyes with a groan) and ran into the showers, pumping the handle. The soft hiss of water was overpowered by a loud shouted stream of profanities and curses on cold water.

"VERDAMMT—SCHEISSE, SCHEISSE—"

Arthur only shook his head, but he was grinning like mad.

.

It took Gilbert nearly twenty minutes and a ruined towel to rinse the dye off of his head, but it worked. His whitish-blond hair was now the colour of bubble gum. The effect was extremely disconcerting to Arthur with the German's pale face and reddish eyes but he seemed awfully pleased with his new look, strutting around with a stupid grin on his face and flipping whatever flippable pink hair he could. Arthur decided then not to say anything and kept his laughter in.

The people around them had mixed reactions about Gilbert's new 'do. Some teachers, like their extremely awkward geography teacher, had turned a blind eye and pointedly not looked at Gilbert's atrociously pink head. Others had sent him off to the headmaster's office with flaring nostrils and coloured cheeks—Arthur didn't think he'd ever forget the sight of their mathematics teacher with her ginger hair and ruddy face, breathing fire as her chubby finger pointed Gilbert out of her classroom.

"I will _burn _you," she'd hissed at him. "Ssssskin you and make you into—shoes!"

For some reason this made Gilbert double over in laughter, echoing his teacher's words while choking on snorts. It earned him a month's worth of detention, at which he promptly shut up.

No matter how people reacted to it; it turned heads, all across campus and Gilbert enjoyed it. He liked it when the spotlight was on him, which admittedly made him an amazing vocalist but also an object of worry for Arthur. It was harmless enough now, and it certainly gave him an edge when they played in the city at night, Gilbert tossing his pink head everywhere.

But later on… later on…

Ahh, hell, it doesn't matter does it?

As for Arthur's new black hair, not everyone noticed it like they did with Gilbert's, although an Asian boy with a band-aid on his nose did tap on his shoulder, frantically spouting a stream of Japanese until Arthur turned around and the Japanese stopped.

"Oh, I'm very sorry," the boy said quickly, casting his eyes downward. "I thought you were someone else, sorry, sorry…"

Arthur assured the boy that it was all right and continued on to the library, where he sat down and began studying for biology. Not that he tried to. It was more like he sat there while his eyes glazed over in front of the detailed diagrams of the Krebs cycle. He didn't even notice Alfred had sat down next to him until the American poked him very sharply in the side.

"What—" Arthur yelped and then caught his breath. "Oh, it's you."

"Yeah, it is," Alfred said, grinning. "What's up?"

"Just, you know," mumbled, gesturing vaguely to his notes. "Trying to get through this year. I hate biology."

"Gosh, same," agreed Alfred. "They weren't lying about GSCE year. Someone in upper sixth told me it was hell."

"Who?"

"Oh, damn, who was it?" Arthur snapped his fingers. "That girl with the huge tits. What's her name?"

"Katya?"

"Yeah, her." Alfred nodded thoughtfully. "Essays and tests and coursework everywhere."

"You're not kidding." Arthur ran a hand through his hair. "You don't happen to know the difference between amino acids and proteins would you?"

The bell rang and Alfred cursed. "I gotta go, but I think amino acids make up proteins." He started gathering up his things and just when he was about to leave, he paused. "Oh, by the way," he said. "I like your hair."

Arthur couldn't resist a grin the rest of the day.

.

"All right then—the difference between the strength of an acid and the concentration of an acid." Gilbert looked at Arthur expectantly.

"Hell if I know," the Brit answered with a dry laugh. "Isn't concentration how much acid is in the solution? And… I don't know strength."

"That's how much it ionises," Gilbert said, consulting his notes.

"Ionises?" Arthur squinted at his own messy handwriting. "Separates into… ions."

"Yeah, like hydrochloric acid ionises into hydrogen plus one and chlorine minus one." Gilbert raised and eyebrow. "Don't you know this? I thought you actually paid attention in chem."

"I _do_," protested Arthur. "It's just we played a show the night before the day we learned that, and I was _tired._"

"Sure," said Gilbert. "All right… pH measures…?"

"Concentration of hydromium in a solution," said Arthur automatically. "You know where Mathias is? I thought he was coming."

"To our bust of a study party?" Gilbert snorted. "Right."

"That, and practice is in five minutes," said Arthur, looking at his watch. "We could cram then."

"Stop by Mattie's dorm first then?"

"Sure." Arthur tucked his notebook and textbook under his arm. "Let's go."

Mathias's dorm was on the first floor of Eckland Hall, so they stopped and walked down the stairs and through the corridor to Mathias's dorm, where, oddly enough, the door was closed.

"Odd," Gilbert remarked in an undertone. "It's usually open."

_Way to state the obvious_, thought Arthur, but he didn't say anything because he noticed something else.

The smell.

The smell was kind of musty, kind of thick, and one that Arthur would know anywhere. He'd spent half—no, nearly all—of his primary school years holding his breath to avoid that smell, to avoid the churning inside when he smelt it. He _grew up _with that smell. He would go home and open the door of their flat to have that smell hit his nostrils. Even now he found himself clenching his teeth, curling his fingers into fists, the emotions shaking inside him, emotions he'd kept under wraps after meeting Roma, after moving in with him.

"Arthur, are you all right?" Gilbert's voice came from very far away, so his ears heard, and Arthur inhaled quickly and exhaled slowly, trying to compose himself.

"Fine," he said shortly. "I'm fine."

Gilbert didn't seem entirely convinced, but he still turned to open the door. "Mathias?" he called out uncertainly.

He was answered by laughter. Mathias's laughter.

The German opened the door wider.

Inside Mathias was sitting on the floor cross-legged, wearing an old Liverpool FC shirt and jeans, his nerdy glasses on, but upside down. He was rocking back and forth, and he had music on. Something indie and different with a plethora of soft piano chords, upbeat drums, electronic synth, and a chorus of smooth voices. Arthur recognised the song vaguely from somewhere, but for the first time in his life, the music was the least of his worries. If it could be anything else, that is.

It was nothing when he saw the roll of paper from Mathias's hand, one end lit up orange and smoking with the smell of burning pot.

The floor tilted underneath his feet. Arthur thought he might vomit in disgust and rage and so many other conflicting emotions. He barely heard Mathias laughing at Gilbert's ridiculously pink hair (though it was true), or Gilbert repeating his attempts to see if Arthur was okay (which he wasn't).

Instead, Arthur turned…

…and ran.

* * *

><p><strong>author's note: <strong>I AM STILL ALIVE and my only excuses were Sherlock and exams. So I was running around amok with feelings and shtuff everywhere and I AM BACK NOW so hopefully there will be more regular weekly updates. Hopefully. I mean, I'm in the process of writing chapter 12 right now so DON'T LOSE HOPE

* the song Mathias is listening to in the last scene is "Call It What You Want" by Foster the People. :3

* The Asian kid that talked to Arthur in Japanese is NOT Japan, but I think it's one of his prefectures.

and also

* Sherlock references.

ftw.


	12. a meeting with mary jane

_12. a meeting with mary jane_

"So he was really doing pot?" Alfred raised his eyebrows. "Like—marijuana pot?"

"No, he was having chicken pot pie," said Arthur dryly. He dotted an 'i' viciously, nearly stabbing his pencil through the paper. "Of course he was doing pot."

They were studying in Alfred's dorm, which he shared with his brother Matthew, though the self-proclaimed Canadian was out at the moment doing who knew what. The room itself was really rather cosy, Alfred's side anyway. The walls were covered in posters of comic book characters like Green Lantern and Superman and Captain America (particularly Captain America), pictures of a city skyline ("It's New York," Alfred explained once, "where we used to live before moving here.") and a pennant for a sports team that Arthur didn't recognise. Bits of rubbish were strewn all over the floor—old crisp bags and candy wrappers and a pile of laundry that Alfred swore was clean. (Nevertheless Arthur avoided it anyway. That an the growing, monstrous stack of papers and coursework underneath Arthur's desk.)

Alfred shifted his position on his desk chair, hugging his knees and curling his toes on the edge of the seat. "Where'd he get it?"

"No bloody idea," said Arthur bitterly. "And I don't care to know."

Alfred nodded and spun around a couple times more on his chair. "You seem awfully upset about it," he noted.

"Damn straight, he's ruining his body and life with that stuff," said Arthur, turning a page in his history textbook.

"Is that right?" Alfred tilted his head, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement. Normally Arthur would have found that comforting in an odd way, but at the moment he was far too annoyed to smile at it.

"Yes, it is," he replied tensely.

The American looked slightly surprised at Arthur's snappish reply and put his legs down on the floor properly. "Oh," he said. "Is it that important to you?"

Arthur looked down and tried to refocus on his history book. Alfred seemed genuinely concerned—it was written all over his face—and Arthur tried not to feel the flutter in his chest. "Yes, it is," he said quietly. "My brother, Rhys—he's… well, I suppose he was kind of a junkie. He's long done with pot, though."

"Does he do coke, then?" asked Alfred, and Arthur nodded.

There was a sort of tense silence, which Alfred broke after a bit.

"If-if you don't mind me asking," he asked nervously. "I—When did he start?"

Arthur fiddled with his pencil. "Um, maybe six years ago, almost," he said finally. "When my dad… my dad walked out on us, is all."

Alfred's eyes widened. "He _walked out _on you?"

"He wasn't really a very good dad." Arthur shrugged, trying to keep the angry edge out of his voice. He put down his pencil. "I don't really like talking about it, sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," said Alfred automatically, "I shouldn't have pried."

"You're fine," said Arthur, bending back over to read more about the English Civil War. Alfred sighed with relief.

"Good," he said. "Then on a completely unrelated note, you don't mind explaining to me redox again? This oxidation number thing really confuses me."

"No problem," Arthur said with a grin.

.

It took a while before Alfred managed to balance an equation using the redox methods that he was supposed to (and after which he declared that they were "completely fucking pointless") but he got it, under Arthur's tutelage. The clock on Al's desk read 17.00, and Arthur stood up.

"See you at dinner, then?" he asked the American, and Alfred nodded.

"Yeah," he said with a grin. "Just gotta b.s. the rest of this essay for Lit and I'll be down."

"All right, bye." Arthur returned the smile and, gathering things, left Alfred's dorm. He nearly crashed into someone on his way down the corridor.

"Oh god, I'm sorry—" and with a start he recognised the frog, _What's he doing here? His dorm's next to ours._

"Did you," began Francis without preamble, "just come out of Alfred's dorm?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Francis only gave him a look. Arthur sighed.

"Well if you _must _know," said Arthur, "we were just studying."

"All right," said Francis. Something about his expression... seemed... forced to Arthur. "Well, I'm off to dinner, good-bye."

And he left without a further comment.

Arthur shrugged the odd feeling of guilt(?) off and headed down to the cafeteria, where he joined Gilbert in the queue.

"Hello," he greeted his friend.

"Hello yourself," said Gilbert. "How was your day? And yes, by day I mean the four bloody hours you spent in that yank's dorm."

"All right," said Arthur. "He's not as bad as you make him out to be."

"I know," insisted Gilbert. "I just talk to him, is all."

Arthur shrugged. "You have your friends; I've got mine."

"And speaking of friends, there's Mathias," said Gilbert, nodding towards the cafeteria entrance. Arthur turned to look.

Sure enough Mathias's tall frame filled the doorway, accompanied by a shorter boy with pale blond hair and sleepy blue eyes. Arthur didn't recognise the shorter boy and he didn't care to. He instead turned and pretended to take note of a poster encouraging him to drink more milk.

"You all right?" asked Gilbert.

"I'm hungry," said Arthur briskly, trying to repress some of the burning resentment that threatened to leak out. "The roast looks good doesn't it?"

He didn't want to think about it. Mathias being in the room wasn't helping much. And there was also the matter that the song that the Dane had been listening to was stuck in his head.

Gilbert sighed and self-consciously ran a hand through his hair, something he'd started doing a lot more often since he'd dyed it. "Well then, have you seen the painting exhibit yet?"

"Oh." Arthur tore his attention away. "No; I know mine's in there but I haven't actually seen it yet."

"D'you want to go after dinner?" Gilbert asked, and added hopefully: "I want to see yours. And Francis's too."

Arthur shrugged. "Fine with me."

They ate in a hurry, at Gilbert's insistence, then left to go to the arts building.

There weren't many people around, but given the setting of the exhibition, Arthur felt slightly out of place with his dyed-black hair and skinny jeans. The walls and lighting were elegant and fancy, and it almost reminded him of Roma's flat, except the lights weren't trained on canvases hung on the walls, or on sculpture installations on wooden pedestals, or on the glasses of sparkling grape juice. Arthur grabbed a glass, for sake of free food (which he wasn't stupid enough to refuse) and stumbled after Gilbert, who eagerly ran up to a canvas Arthur recognised as his own.

"Wow!" exclaimed the German. "This looks like Roma!"

"It... it is Roma," said Arthur dryly.

"And that must be why it looks like him1"

Arthur shook his head and wandered off to see the rest of the gallery. He saw Bella standing there, looking at some other paintings by a lower level class and joined her.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi," he said. "Do you take art?"

"Yeah, my piece is right over there." She pointed to a square canvas with a rendering of Jager in oil paint. "who did you do for that?"

"Roma," Arthur shrugged. "Dunno if you know him."

"I've heard about him; but never had the honour of meeting him," Bella said, turning to study a graphite drawing of Bob Marley. "Yours must've been good.

"No,' the Brit said quickly.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Bella asked.

"I—I dunno," Arthur said. "I'm not really that good."

Bella smiled and Arthur smiled back. They moved a bit farther into the exhibition and that was when Arthur saw it.

It was the same size as his own painting, but instead of being covered with Arthur's rustic warm colour palette, it was energising and bright and high-contrast, with dark, dark shadows and white; white highlights, streaked with neon blue and green on the left, illuminated with electric yellow on the other, outlining the planes of a face, a face whose brilliant green irises stared out at the viewer from the corner of its eyes, framed by heavy, thick eyebrows

Arthur didn't say anything. He honestly couldn't. There was nothing to say. He didn't hear Bella's surprised "That's... that's you, isn't it?" He didn't feel Gilbert poking him viciously in the side, didn't hear the buzz of appraisal at the painting behind him. He only saw the painting.

"Who is it by?" asked Bella; somehow his ear had caught that out of the blur of noise loud and clear.

_Who else would it be?_

Arthur, driven by some unknown impulse, turned and began walking. His feet took him out of the building and to his dorm, where he reached under his bed for his guitar and left. He went towards the roof. Up. To the sky, where he could breathe.

He took out his iTouch, began recording. Put his fingers on the fretboard.

And sang.

He called it "Eckland."

.

Gilbert put a hand to his earphone. "Arthur," he said. "This is really good."

Arthur shrugged and kept typing his English essay.

"Serious." Gilbert scooted forward on his rolling chair, carefully avoiding a pile of discarded sweatpants lying on the floor. "We need to make a demo. Like a proper one."

"No."

The German looked positively offended. "What d'you mean 'no'?"

"I don't want to make a proper demo," Arthur snapped. "I'm _not _writing a drum track."

Gilbert paused. "Is this about Mathias?"

"_What?_"

"Is this about him? Because I'm getting absolutely sick of having to go between you two."

"You don't _have _to." Arthur hit save and closed his laptop. "You chose to."

"You guys are forcing me to!" protested Gilbert.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Right."

"You are!"

The Brit shrugged.

Gilbert gave a frustrated grunt. "You know what? I've had it with your _bloody _awful attitude. You need to get it together."

Arthur snorted. "_I _need to get it together? I'm looking pretty calm right now, aren't I?"

"No! No, you need to stop—don't run to the bloody yank—"

"I wish you would use his name," said Arthur irritably. "He's got a name, you know."

"Why do you talk to him so much anyway?" demanded Gilbert.

"Well, maybe it's got to do with the fact that he doesn't piss me off all the time like both of you do!" yelled Arthur. Gilbert, for one, seemed almost at a loss for words, and resorted only to staring at his dormmate with a dumbfounded look on his face, opening and closing his mouth very stupidly.

"Arthur—" he began, but Arthur simply stood up, took his iPod back, and stormed out of the room.

"Oh, Arthur," said Alfred when he opened the door of his hall. "What's up?"

"Can I… uh… hang out here for a bit?" Arthur scratched his head awkwardly but was relieved when Alfred stepped back to let him in.

Inside Alfred's dorm it looked as if the wardrobe had thrown up all over the floor. Jerseys of a navy blue colour and white and red stripes on the sleeves were strewn on the floor along with jeans and T-shirts with stupid sayings and logos. His fake leather bomber jacket was draped over his chair and the pile of papers under his desk was more terrifying than ever.

"What are you doing?" asked Arthur, forgetting immediately his anger at Gilbert in that second. "And what is _this_?" he added, picking up one of the navy blue jerseys.

"I'm packing for the holidays, dur," replied the American, laughing. "We'll be out of the country for a bit. And the jersey is for football."

"Doesn't look like any team that I'd know" said Arthur.

"No, I mean American football," Alfred corrected himself. "Sorry I forgot about the whole thing with football and soccer…"

"The American ball doesn't even look like a proper ball," laughed Arthur.

"It's a butt running after it when someone drops it," agreed Alfred. "It turns into this huge pile of a bunch of people trying to grab the ball at once."

"That's _barbaric_," said Arthur.

"No, it's great," said Alfred, grinning. "And the jersey's for the New England Patriots."

"New England?" Arthur raised an eyebrow.

"What?" said Alfred, looking a little hurt. "They're my favourite team."

"I just… everything about that name is just…" Arthur shook his head, grinning.

"There are worse ones," Alfred said darkly. "New York has two teams."

"All right then," said Arthur, still trying to stifle a laugh. He put down the jersey. "I should leave you to your packing."

"No, it's f ine. I mean, I can take a break from it, really." Alfred settled down on his bed. "What's up?"

"I dunno," said Arthur after thinking a moment. "I mean, Gilbert and Mathias are just… being really annoying."

"How so?" asked Alfred.

Arthur shrugged. "It's a bit of a long story."

"I think I've got time for it. It's Saturday, right?" Alfred smiled.

Arthur shrugged again. "Then… can we go up on the roof?"

They climbed the stairs and Arthur stumbled slightly—the view was different than it was on the Eckland roof. In fact he could see Eckland from the rooftop. The sun was setting, and Arthur wished he could capture it with paint, but he didn't have canvas or paint. It was beautiful either way, and he inhaled deeply.

Alfred sat down on the edge of the building, swinging his legs easily and opening a can of Coke that Arthur hadn't seen before.

Arthur hesitated. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"Hm?" Alfred took a swig of Coke. "Oh. Nahh, it's only if you push me over."

Arthur laughed and sat down next to him. "Could I have some of that?" he asked, pointing to the Coke. Alfred handed the can over.

"So," he said casually (easy enough to do with the flat American accent). "Talk to me. What's it all about?"

"Too much shit," said Arthur. "Mathias, well, there's him with the drugs and and all of that and ah, I don't really know. Somehow he just became really annoying after that.

Alfred kept looking at him.

"That's about it," said Arthur.

Alfred stared at him blankly for another second, then threw his head back in a deep laugh. There was a sort of happy glow about Alfred when he laughed—his cheeks bunched up and his blue eyes nearly closed and his hair flew back as he tilted his face to look at the sky.

"I'm sorry," he said, still chortling at his own stupidity. "I thought there was more, I'm sorry."

"You're fine," said Arthur. "Actually, you're right, there sort of is more."

Alfred cocked his head in interest.

"See, Gilbert's trying to get us to make up," sghed Arthur in exasperation. "It's all a bit stupid…"

"You don't want to?" guessed Alfred.

"No."

"Isn't he your best friend, though?"

A pause.

"My best friend?" echoed Arthur dumbly.

"Yeah… aren't you always talking to him and stuff?" Alfred shrugged. "You and Mathias and Gilbert, you're all so different, and yet you're so tight."

Arthur sipped some of the Coke and listened as Alfred kept talking.

"But sometimes, it gets a too tight, you know?" The American boy leaned on his elbows and looked out onto the campus. "And you need breathing room. Hang out with other people… like Bella," he added with a grin.

"Bella?" Arthur asked confusedly.

"Yeah, she _likes _you," said Alfred.

"Well of course; we're friends," said Arthur, still confused.

"Oh, for _fuck's sake!_" Alfred threw up his hands.

"_What?_" asked Arthur desperately.

"To put it in your terms," Alfred said, then assumed a vaguely convincing English accent: "_She bloody fancies you!_"

Arthur laughed. "Right, and pigs fly!"

"So you _haven't _seen her making stupid goo-goo eyes at you?" Alfred shook his head. "Oh my _God…_"

"Whaaaaat? No, that's—that's—"

"She _has_," said Alfred. "God, you are so _dense—"_

"But..." Arthur scrunched up his eyebrows. "If she had, I would've known…"

Alfred stared.

"Wow," he said. "Everyone really _does _know except you."

Arthur didn't really know what to do. "How long has everyone… known?" he made out finally.

Alfred shrugged. "I dunno, actually. But yeah."

There was another stretch of silence, in which Arthur pondered this newly discovered fact.

"I never actually thought anyone would actually fancy me," he said, half to himself.

"You have no confidence, man," said Alfred, watching the reddening sky. "You're pretty cool, you know? It's not bad to have someone like you, Artie."

Somehow at that moment Arthur thought of Francis and the painting, and _god, did he have to go thinking about that frog now?_

"Don't call me Artie," he managed.

"Will do," laughed Alfred, and was rewarded by a punch in the shoulder.

"Ow—no—stop it—dude, I'm going to fall off the roof—"

.

On the Friday after holidays began, Arthur took a cab to Jager's flat to rehearse one last time for a show before they went off. It wasn't like he could practice with them in the empty music classroom—_no, he shouldn't think about that place, about the others right now, ugh._

"Hello," said the Dutchman as he opened the door. "Come on, it's cold, do you want a cuppa?"

"Yes, please," said Arthur, stepping inside and setting his guitar down on the floor. Sadik was passed out on the couch, his face covered with a book about (Arthur tilted his head to look) "Italian Architecture of the 16th Century." Jager walked back in with a hot cup of tea and a rough look, and kicked Sadik roughly.

"Get up, Arthur's here!" he yelled.

Sadik stirred. He lifted the book off his face (the pages had gone all wrinkly and little ink words were imprinted on his walnut-brown cheek) and yelped in surprise. "Artie!"

"Don't call me that," Arthur said automatically.

"My man!" Sadik said, ignoring the last remark. "And Mat—wait, where's Mathias?"

"Oh." Arthur frowned at thet hought—everyone in their circle (was that really the right word? Arthur sometimes felt like an outsider still) had stayed at school over the holidays, for some reason: Gilbert, Mathias, Francis, Antonio… everyone except Alfred. "I didn't… really want to talk to him."

"What about Gilbert?" asked Jager, holding out the mug to Arthur.

"Not him either," replied the Brit, taking the cup. "I'll sing for tonight."

"Right, then, of course." Jager sat down at his laptop. "Could I finish this quickly?"

"Yeah, sure."

"So, Artie, tell me," Sadik said. "Why aren't you playing with your mates? I mean, you three are _amazing _together, really."

Arthur sighed. "It isn't enough that you let me play with just you two and now you have to know why?"

Sadik rolled off the couch. "All right, all right, no need to be so uptight, eh? And speaking of which, you don't sound Scouse anymore."

"What?" Arthur asked. "Really?"

"Sadik, how is this relevant at all?" asked Jager, sitting down at the opposing couch. "And yeah, actually, it's not as strong anymore, you know."

"What, really?" Arthur grabbed at his throat like that was going to catch his accent.

"It's that school of yours," said Sadik, waving his hand from his position lying down on the floor. "Posh and priiiiiivate."

"Sadik, get the _fuck _off the floor and let's rehearse," said Jager, looking a bit irritated.

"Yes, but don't you want to know why Mathias and Gilbert aren't here?" Sadik put his hands behind his head. "They're such dolls aren't they?"

Jager slung his bass over his shoulder. "Maybe I am a bit… concerned, but come on, we have to practice!"

"But Mattie is my favourite!" complained Sadik.

"Okay!" Arthur burst out loudly. "I had a row with Gilbert because Mathias was doing drugs and now I'm ignoring both of them!"

They both stared at him a moment, Jager's green eyes and Sadik's amber eyes.

"Mathias is doing drugs?" asked Jager slowly.

Arthur only gave him a look.

"What, exactly?"

The Brit went to his guitar and took it out slowly.

"Marijuana," he said, after a minute.

Another rmoment where Jager and Sadik silently absorbed the information.

"That's really not that bad," said Jager slowly. "It's pretty mild, compared to some of the others."

"Fairly common in the business, too," added Sadik. "Everyone gets sucked in at one point or another."

"Yeah, maybe in the seventies," snorted the Dutchman. "But I suppose people here are still a bit into it."

"Yeah, reminds me," Sadik said, crawling to his drum stool. "Hit me up, please? It's been ages."

Arthur froze.

"serious? Cuz that makes me tonight's 'designated driver'"—he said that in an irrtated tone—"and you have to drive to the next gig." Jager went over to the balcony of their flat and brushed his fingers between several leafy, green, plants.

"And you know you hate driving."

"Oh, fuck you and just give it to me already." Sadik waved his hands over his drums. "Grabby hands."

The Dutchman rolled his eyes. "Fine."

Arthur watched numbly as Sadik eagerly bounced in his seat while Jager took a bag of shredded leaves and emptied the contents of the bag on the coffee table. With nimble fingers he rolled the leaves into neat little rolls and with excited eyes Sadik eagerly took a silver lighter and flicked it, illuminating one end and lighting it up. He inhaled deeply and grinned.

"That's the stuff," he declared, and inhaled another lungful. "You know, Arthur, this stuff makes you—you know—play better."

Arthur looked up.

"Serious?"

Sadik chuckled.

"Completely. Everything just so much _more_," he said, waving his hand vaguely. "Better. Cooler."

"I wouldn't know."

"Yeah?" Sadik raised an eyebrow. "Wanna find out?"

"It's safe," said Jager, fiddling with the amp's dials. "I grow most of my marijuana, so it's not contaminated; you won't get a bad high."

It didn't really matter whether the high was going to be bad or not. Not to Arthur. It was just… how he was supposed to take the thing after all he'd seen firsthand? Rhys—wasn't he supposed to be doing his A-levels now? He hadn't even finished secondary school. Was that where Arthur would go if he took this?

He swallowed hard. His hand shook.

_This stuff makes you play—you know—play better._

Arthur's hand reachd out unsteadily to accept the joint.

"Why the hell not?"

.

**author's note**

Did this just turn into a fic that updates a month?

Or worse, in over a month?

/cries


	13. trust renewed and trust broken

_13. trust renewed and trust broken_

"So, Arthur," said Gilbert casually, too casually, eyes down and focused on balancing his homework on his lap. "How was last night?"

Arthur rolled over on his bed, staring at his own pile of still-untouched homework. "Fine. Surprised that you noticed I was out."

"I can fake being asleep."

"Keep telling yourself that. You snore."

"… how were the drugs?"

The Brit sat up. "What?"

"The drugs." Gilbert turned a page. "I reckon they were fun?"

"How do you know?" demanded Arthur.

Gilbert sighed. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapped the screen several times, then handed it to Arthur.

**Arthur Kirkland: **darkness everywhere and fuck it. is. beautiful. the lights are beautiufl because circles and hexs but CRIECLS  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>blue pink green blue-green orange CIRCLES these traffic lites kick ass  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>OH  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>fuck heavy metal  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>this is better now i go fuck guitar bye  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>CIRCLES PINK CIRCLES  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>sadik tastes like lemons  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>lol  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland:<strong> hi  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>hi  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>gilbert  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland:<strong> r  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>u  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>doing  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>homework  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>eh  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong> bloody kraut  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>guess what  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>what  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>brownies  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>u jelly  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>plug in babyyyy  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>desigginato dwya  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>hey fuck you  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>go fuck eliziiiii  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>i'll fuck francium biggest element  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>ding dong big ben LOL  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>ooh baby dont u kno i suffer  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>u set my soul alight  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>glaciers melting in the deaf of night  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>aosdhfsdlatwoaifsad  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>asdoijasodijfsaodifjhso  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>hyper hyper  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>traffic lights are coloured e major  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  
><strong>Arthur Kirkland: <strong>good night i leave now

Arthur blinked. "Oh."

The German put his phone away and gave his dorm-mate a look. "I thought this was the reason you had a row with Mathias?"

Arthur sighed. "Okay, fine, it is, but—"

"Shouldn't you apologise?" Gilbert cut in.

The Brit cringed. "Yes, but—"

"But?"

Arthur ran a hand through his hair. "I dunno, I just don't… feel like apologising," he said lamely.

"It's only fair to him since you went off and did exactly what you were mad at him for." Gilbert slid off the bed. "I'm going to lunch, where he probably is right now. Do you want to apologise to him then?"

"I can do it later," said Arthur, slightly affronted. "It's my apology."

"It's better if you do it now," said Gilbert.

"Why?"

"Because," said Gilbert, "a row with Mattie is a row with me."

"Wait—are you saying you're taking his side?" Arthur drew his eyebrows together.

"No, I just want you to apologise, already." Gilbert crossed his arms. "It's getting pretty fucking annoying and we need to practise."

"Since when do _you _care about the band?" Arthur shot back.

Gilbert stared at him incredulously for a second, then shook his head. "You're impossible."

"Yeah, thanks," Arthur spat out bitterly, and Gilbert, frowning, left the room.

"Siding little wad of pretentiousness," Arthur muttered to himself once the door had closed after his roommate. "It's not his business, why does he give a fuck?"

"He cares, that's all," said a girl's voice from the door, and Arthur jumped.

Bella grinned at him from the doorway. She looked somehow really pretty that day, somehow Arthur noticed, with an oversized knit sweater and high boots and an innocent smile. Arthur tried not to notice it too much as he grinned back.

"Sorry," he said quickly.

"That's all right," she said. "They say that talking to yourself is a sign of genius."

"How'd you get in here, anyway?" asked Arthur, standing up.

Bella shrugged. "That's for me to know and you to figure out."

Arthur laughed. "Sure."

"It is, really."

Arthur pretended to think. "Wouldn't strike me."

She laughed, maybe too hard, and leaned against the frame. "Come on. Even rock stars have to eat. It's noon."

"Already?" He checked the alarm clock. "Oh. Geez, when did I start getting up so early?" He stood up to put on his jacket.

"There's a dear," she said, and kissed his cheek.

He paused slightly, surprised at the gesture. But he supposed he shouldn't have been too surprised; she was a girl, and girls did that sort of thing. Didn't they? She was already walking out of the suite in the split second he'd paused, so he decided to just follow her out anyway, pretend that what she'd done was normal. Because it was. Right. Okay.

Of course then she took his hand, which Arthur thought was also a bit forward, but it wasn't like she was _hurting _him at all. That was silly. But what was even sillier was that when they walked into the dining hall everyone in their form turned to stare. Including a certain roommate of his, a certain frog, and a certain Spaniard mouthing 'I told you so.' Arthur suddenly remembered what Alfred had told him only several weeks back, and his stomach twisted slightly. He gave all of his peers 'shove off' looks. _It's just lunch with a friend, isn't it?_

They got their meals, sat down and she smiled at him again. He smiled back nervously.

"So, how is life?" she asked him, crossing her legs, and propping her chin up on one hand. "We haven't really talked much lately."

"Yeah, exams and all," said Arthur. "I really hate GCSE year, don't you?"

"God, yes," said Bella, laughing. "There's far too much work, really. I'm kind of lazy, too," she added.

"Yeah," Arthur said. "I've got better stuff to do then all of this."

"Such as?"

"Well, playing guitar, for one." Arthur shrugged. Bella laughed. How that was anywhere near funny was beyond him.

"You've definitely got a point there," she said, playing with the plastic lid on her cup. "I wish I was that good at something like you are."

"What d'you mean by that?" the Brit asked, alarmed. "You're good at all sorts of things."

"Not really," said Bella. "I mean, I suppose, but not really. I just… haven't got—you know—a calling. Like you and your band."

Arthur fiddled with his earring. "That's not true. We're really not that great."

Bella chuckled quietly. "Did you know Arthur? Butterflies can't see the wings on their back. They don't know how beautiful and amazing they are."

Arthur pondered it. "Okay…?"

"Well, don't you see? Your band, this thing you've got—it's really a wonderful thing, you just can't… see it." Bella smiled.

He made a face. "Whatever."

"Ahh, it doesn't matter right now. You'll see eventually." She tilted her head. "Speaking of which—your band, I mean—have you made up with Mathias yet?"

"What?" Arthur studied the table. "No."

"You do know he's right there?" She pointed. Arthur cursed.

"Well, I was going to get to it. Just… not now," he stammered.

Bella gave him a look reminiscent of one of Roma's when he was expecting something from his grandsons. On him, it looked mature and wise and playful. On her, it was merely playful and pretty. He couldn't help it.

"Oh, fine," he grumbled good-naturedly, and stood up.

He forced his feet to move over to the table where Mathias sat. It was all the way across the room. He tried not to look at the Dane, looking at all the other boys who sat by him instead.

There was one boy with blond hair (well, they all had blond hair, but his hair was a sort of darkish ashy blond) and very dark blue eyes. He'd pulled back a section of his fringe by a funny cross-shaped barrette (which Arthur found extremely strange) and the rest fell straight across the rest of his forehead. He surveyed Arthur with a touch of annoyance, like the Brit was a minor itch on his nose that he couldn't be bothered with. There was something about the boy that sent Arthur's stomach in an uncomfortable twist.

Then there was Berwald sitting on the other side of the annoyed boy and intimidating as ever, and with him the ever-cheerful and smiling Tino; Arthur recognised them from his dorm. He nodded quickly to them before swallowing and looking at Mathias.

It was like looking into the sun—they tell the little kids not to, but then they do and they complain of the burning in their eyes and they look away so fast the pain merely lasts a fraction of a second and oh, he was making far too big of a fuss out of this…

"Ohm Arthur!" Mathias said as Arthur approached the table (it still felt like he was wading through thick swampy mud or something). "What's happening?"

Arthur glanced over the others (averting Berwald's eyes quickly; god he was scary) and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Uh, is there a way I can have a word with you in private?"

Mathias looked awkwardly at the others. The cross-barrette boy scoffed slightly and deadpanned "Whatever, I've got stuff to do." He looked at the Dane with slightly annoyed eyes. "Good bye, idiot."

Mathias only laughed as the boy walked away. "You too, love."

Arthur tried not to make a face. _Love?_

"Yeah, I should do homework," sighed Tino. He scooped up his phone and yawned. "Coming, Berwald?"

"Yeah," said the Swede, and he and Tino left. Mathias waved.

When they were gone, Arthur sat down. The drummer waited patiently as Arthur got his thoughts together.

"Well, not too long ago," he began, "you—I—I mean, Gilbert and I walked in on you—er, well—we saw you—you know. You know. Um."

"Smoking pot?" offered Mathias.

"Yeah. And you know, I got really angry because, you know, of Rhys doing and all of that. And well, I feel like a total and complete idiot now because—I did a gig with Jager and Sadik recently and, well I sort of—ended up doing pot because they were… they were."

Mathias didn't say anything. He simply kept watching Arthur with clear blue eyes, so Arthur kept talking.

"And, well, I just wanted to say I'm sorr—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, because then Mathias had enveloped him in a huge hug.

"Oh, Arthur," the Dane choked out. "I love you so much, man."

Arthur hadn't been expecting this. He also hadn't been expecting to have to resist the urge to laugh. He bit his lip. "Yeah, I love you too."

Mathias only tightened his embrace and… oh god, was he sniffling?

"Too long, Mattie, too long," said Arthur, still straining not to laugh.

"Oh, Christ, I'm sorry," said Mathias. He let go. "So—you? Taking drugs? _Smoking?_ I mean, I know people in my hall who do but I would've never thought that you…."

"I wouldn't either," said Arthur quickly, looking down at his callused hands. The raised lines on his fingertips were rough and white now. "But Sadik sort of pressured me to."

"He's really quite persuasive," agreed Mathias. "Son of a bitch."

"It wasn't just that," said Arthur, slightly miffed. "I kind of thought that… that I'd play better with it…"

"Oh. Well he never said anything like that to me," grumbled Mathias. "But was he right? Did it make your playing better?"

Arthur thought. And honestly he couldn't remember much of what happened that night. The texts in his phone were a bit of a clue, he supposed, but the only things he remembered from last night were sensations. A lack of control. A sort of vulnerability, his perceptions twisted into something, different, more fascinating and brighter and sharper and maybe, just maybe better. It was like slipping into a different world, where everything was just so much more than it was without it, and he vaguely remembered the amount of power and brilliance flooding his veins. The music and the lights and faces and sensations of touch and laughter…

But he almost—as much as he had been absolutely transfixed by the brilliance—didn't like it. No, he didn't like it. It was too much; too much work, too much to deal with, too much burning in his throat and itchiness and lungs, and it took him forever to get properly high, so long it wasn't worth it. He didn't like the loss of control, the twisting of sensations, because the world was plenty confusing enough without anything else to dement it. And simply the smell brought Rhys's face to mind and made Arthur's stomach churn awfully.

"No. No, it didn't," he said truthfully. "I didn't really like it at all."

"Neither did I!" said Mathias, his eyes shining with relief. "I swear, it took me forever to actually get high and it was so bloody unpleasant, too—hey, what're you laughing at?"

Arthur shook his head, grinning. It was good to talk to Mathias again. Arthur was, quite frankly, tired of dealing with Gilbert's antics and annoyances all the time, and the Dane was a welcome change.

"Nothing," he told Mathias. "Go on."

.

"It's really great that we're back together again," said Gilbert the next day while they were heading from their dorm to their usual place to practise. "I was starting to think that we'd be all split up forever and never get anywhere and then die forever alone."

Arthur simply snorted. "Like I'm going to let that happen. We've still got to get famous."

"I forgot about that," said Gilbert, laughing.

Arthur stopped walking. "You forgot about _getting famous?_"

Gilbert turned pink. "That's not what I meant!"

"All right; I just thought that you of all people would want to be in the band mostly to get famous." Arthur shrugged.

"That's not true," protested Gilbert. "The band gave me everything. Bros to depend on, a girlfriend, something to do instead of homework…"

"Ugh, homework," groaned Arthur. "I keep forgetting about _that. _I reckon I'm making C's right now because I haven't turned in any of the set assignments…"

Gilbert laughed, and after a moment, so did Arthur. They really couldn't resist feeling giddy and happy. Not when everything around them was decorated for Christmas. Lights dangled everywhere, mistletoe blossomed over doorways and evergreen branches hung on the walls. There was a great big Christmas tree in the Eckland common room and nowadays the drink of choice was either eggnog or hot chocolate. And of course, there was always gingerbread with icing arranged on plates.

This year there were a great number of students staying at SPQR instead of going home to their families (Arthur wasn't even aware schools did that still—let students stay for the holidays—but perhaps their school was special) and they mulled around, some running around in the few inches of snow that had fallen in the past week. Others opted to curl up in the common rooms or in the dorms and gossip. There was a festive mood on campus and it was contagious. Arthur couldn't help a smile as they turned into the festive arts building, angels and candles and all sorts of other things dotting the corridors. But when they reached the practice room his smile slid off faster than he could say "bloody hell."

Standing in the room and among the amps and toms was a lot of people. Arthur could pick out Francis and Bella and Elizaveta and Antonio and Alfred and basically everyone from his classes and maybe some of the—some of the upperclassmen, _holy fuck._ They were all sort of just standing there, drinking sodas and eating crisps. Mathias was already sitting at his drum kit, and when he saw them he waved to them cheerfully.

Arthur stormed over to him immediately.

"What—did—you—do?" he growled through clenched teeth.

"It's nearly the winter holidays, and I just thought we should spread some of the Christmas cheer." Mathias looked slightly hurt at Arthur's rage. "It's just a jam session…"

"_A jam sessi_—"

"Cool it! People are watching!" Gilbert shoved Arthur. His reddish eyes flickered over to the crowd of people, and Arthur followed his gaze. _Shit, were those upper sixths standing in the corner?_

"Oh, all right," he grumbled. "But what were we gonna play? Did you think of that?"

"Oh, yeah!" Mathias perked up. "Yeah, I've been thinking about that! And I've got the perfect song—'Sexy and I Know It'!"

Gilbert and Arthur stared. (Well, Arthur stared. Gilbert slapped a palm over his face and tried to hold in laughter.)

"You've got to be kidding me," said Arthur loudly.

"No, that's—" Gilbert choked. "That's actually not a bad idea."

Arthur stared at his dorm-mate.

"Think about it. You can just improvise on the guitar, I could just sing, and Mathias does the beat. And I know all the words too, it's perfect. And I gots swag," he added in a damn near-perfect American accent.

It was Mathias's turn to stare, but that quickly dissolved into laughter. "Oh, I've missed this," he sighed happily.

"How'd you learn to do an American accent?" demanded Arthur.

Gilbert smirked. "That's for me to know and for you to dot, dot, dot…"

Mathias rubbed his chin. "I feel like that's from somewhere, but I don't know where…"

"Oy, when're you gonna start?" asked an outdoorsy boy with an Australian and accent that Arthur recognised from his hall.

"Ahh, sorry, lad," Gilbert said, smiling. "Come on."

Arthur took out his guitar, tuned it quickly and threw his cord out so he could walk. "All right, let's do this."

Mathias grinned. "One, two, three, four!"

And before he knew it, Arthur's fingers were flying and he didn't even understand what he was doing, exactly, but it sounded brilliant and Gilbert was dancing to it. He was _really _getting into it. Maybe too much.

"_When I walk on by, girls be lookin' like 'damn he fly'  
>I pimp to the beat, walking on the street in my new lafreak, yeah<br>This is how I roll, animal print pants out of control  
>It's Redfoo with the big afro<br>and like Bruce Lee yeah I got the glow…"_

He reeled Elizaveta in, who giggled and began shaking her hips to the beat with him.

"_Girl look at that body! Girl look at that body! Girl look at that body!_" and he pointed to the crowd and they all yelled, "_Ah—I work out!_"

Three and a half minutes of Gilbert's pelvic thrusts and flat American accent and Arthur was breathing heavily.

"That wasn't bad," he panted. "That wasn't bad at all."

"Don't ever doubt the Dane," Mathias smirked. Arthur wiped his forehead and laughed. Gilbert had Elizaveta dipped down in full-frontal snog.

Arthur just laughed. It was a fantastic holiday and there were cheers and laughter around and he was best mates with Mathias and Gilbert again.

The crowd kept cheering.

.

Christmas passed without a mishap—not too many, but it was one of the more eventful Christmas he'd had. It soon turned to New Year's Eve, where he woke up surprisingly toasty and comfortable.

Gilbert was still asleep, which was unusual because the German usually functioned on much less sleep than he did. Arthur took advantage of the moment by getting dressed in privacy and grabbing his guitar. Then he went upstairs to the roof and got it out, thankful for his new hat to protect his ears from the biting cold. Much to his disappointment, the snow that had arrived over Christmas was nearly already gone, leaving great big patches of concrete and grass on the grounds of the quad.

He sighed slightly, his breath frosting in the air, and put his shivering fingers on the fingerboard and stroked the guitar strings. The perfectly tuned fourths hummed in the still air and faded into the morning cold. He took out his iTouch and tapped 'Record.'

He shifted his fingers—he wanted something brighter today, quirky and eccentric and something like a tertiary coloured-key. E-flat would do, nicely, he thought, maybe…

Without realising how exactly it happened, the music came, and he hummed and sang nonsense words and the chords flowed smoothly into one another, and the solos and melodies ran their course and he was a little relieved that he was recording himself, because if he tried to stop and write it down, the music wouldn't let him and it just kept going and going…

When Mathias finally came up to the roof to get him, it was about noon.

"Artie, hey," he said. "What're you doing up here?"

Arthur switched his iTouch off and shoved it in his pocket. "Writing. What's up?"

"Oh, okay," said Mathias. "Well, for one, it's past noon and you must be starving."

Arthur's stomach growled. He frowned slightly.

"And second," continued the Dane, "some of the teachers staying over holiday were thinking about taking a whole lot of us to London to watch the fireworks."

"You mean like, off the London Eye?" Arthur raised an eyebrow.

Mathias rolled his eyes. "No, they're coming off Mars. Of course off the Eye."

"Like they have on BBC?"

"Like they have on BBC."

"Okay. Do I have to go?"

The Dane shrugged. "Only if you want to."

Arthur considered it and shrugged. "Eh, why no. Haven't got anything else better to do."

"Sounds good, then," said Mathias. "Do you want to get something to eat, though? Because you honestly look like you could use some food."

"How do I look like I need food?" complained Arthur.

"Oy!" yelled another voice behind them. They turned to see Gilbert shivering at the door. "What are you lot doing here; it's freezing!"

"Says the man in his jim-jams," remarked Arthur dryly.

Gilbert crossed his arms. "Shut up!"

"Go put on a jumper if you're so cold," said Mathias.

"Can't be bothered," said Gilbert quickly. "Seriously, though, come on. Come in already, you two are _mental _to be here."

"Mental yourself, to come up in your _jim-jams_," snorted Mathias.

Arthur, meanwhile, had gone off to scrape together the last bits of remaining snow into a ball. And then while Gilbert yelled "SHUT UP, MATHIAS" he seized the opportunity to lob the hastily-made snowball at his band-mate.

"Oh my _GOD!" _Gilbert screamed so loud that Arthur wouldn't have been so surprised if he'd woken up the whole of Greater London. "ARTHUR—YOU TOSSER—BLOODY HELL I'M WET—"

Mathias burst out laughing as Gilbert started running after Arthur, only to have the Brit duck slyly past him and fly through the door to the staircase.

"SON OF A—"

.

At 23.00 they met around the school's front gates, and the teachers lectured them about precautions and not to wander off and all that. Mathias, Gilbert, and Arthur merely stood in the back and snickered the entire time, while the naïve underclassmen listened attentively.

Then they piled onto the buses (which Arthur thought smelled a bit funny and looked a bit dodgy) and drove through the darkness to Central London. The streetlights burned into Arthur's eyes with a sort of familiarity of long nights of raucous shouting and laughter, of the rush of performing and holding a guitar in his hands.

The bus stopped and they all hopped off at a spot by the Thames. People were there already, filling the streets and crowding the squares and standing in every place they could find. They crowd was lively though it was late, and Arthur felt like a live wire, breathing in the cold air with deep, energizing lungfuls. He laughed, suddenly, shouting up at the sky, and his bandmates laughed with him. There was music playing, people dancing and singing, loving life. It was New Year's Eve. Nothing could possibly go wrong. He was in one of the most unique, enigmatic, wonderful places in the world, with the people he trusted most in the world on the most hopeful days of the year. His mind was buzzing. There was nothing to but enjoy the moment.

They waited, looking up at the Eye occasionally and back at the glowing Big Ben tower.

"So, anyone got any resolutions?" asked Mathias.

"Don't smoke pot again," said Arthur, and Mathias laughed.

"Shag Lizzie before the year ends," said Gilbert.

"Serious?" groaned Arthur, while Mathias doubled over in more laughter. "_Shag?_"

"Shh, don't tell her I told you!" Gilbert shoved the pair of them, glancing over his shoulder to check that his girlfriend hadn't heard.

"Too late," sang Mathias, and he ducked to avoid a punch.

"Ladies, ladies, let's stop this cat-fighting, yeah?" said a new voice, and Arthur felt a twinge of something intense. _Hatred, it was hatred._

"Oy, Francis," Gilbert laughed. "Got any resolutions?"

"I'm not allowed to say," replied the French boy, grinning, "or they won't come true."

"_Idioten, _those are _wishes,_" said Gilbert, but Arthur didn't really hear him; he'd just gotten a peculiar feeling in his stomach.

"You all right, Artie?" asked Mathias. Arthur managed a smile.

"I'm fine."

Elizaveta then showed up with hot chocolates for everyone, and they all stood around, laughing and joking and bantering and sipping their hot chocolates.

Then—it happened all so quickly—the crowd was shouting, counting down the seconds, ticking away—

"_Ten! Nine! Eight!"_

In the rush of lights and faces Arthur caught a movement at the corner of his eyes, movement of a fair face and darkish blond hair—

"_Six! Five! Four!" _

And then Francis was there, his blue eyes burning into Arthur's green ones—

"_Two! One!"_

The roar that went up around Arthur was nothing, because Francis was on his mouth and holding him and he (Arthur) didn't feel cold now, not like this, because he could taste chocolate and butter and he moved his lips, wanting more, and _what was he doing, letting this happen—_

A chorus of voices rose, as everyone began to join hands and sing:

_Should auld acquaintance be forgot  
>and never brought to mind?<br>Should old acquaintance be forgot  
>and auld lang syne?<em>

Arthur didn't hear them. He'd opened his eyes, and saw that blur of hair, turning and running through the people. He let go of Francis and ran after her.

"BELLA!" he yelled, but he couldn't even hear himself; the singing was far too loud…

_And surely ye'll buy your pint-cup!  
>and surely I'll buy mine!<br>And we'll take a cup o'kindness yet  
>for auld lang syne.<em>

He caught up to her, in a narrow alley somewhere not far off and grabbed her shoulder. She threw him off, pushed him away.

"I don't want to talk to you," she spat bitterly.

"Bella, I'm—" he faltered, the words stuck in his throat. What would he have said?

"What?" she sneered. "What are you going to say? That you're sorry? I doubt you are."

He didn't say anything.

_We two have run about the slopes  
>and picked the daisies fine<br>but we've wandered many a weary foot  
>since auld lang syne<em>

After a moment of trying to gain self-composure, he spoke.

"Just, let me explain—"

"Why should I let you explain?" She scoffed, a short, dry chuckle, void of any humour. "What is there to explain?"

He found himself without words again, and the singing flooded the silence between them.

_We two have paddled in the stream  
>from morning sun til' dine<br>but seas between us broad have roared  
>since auld lang syne<em>

"Why are you so upset?" said Arthur quietly, desperately. _Why am I so upset?_

"Because," she screamed. "Because I've had a fucking crush on you all this term, and now I found out you're _gay?_"

He buckled under the weight of her words. "I'm not—"

"—Not gay?" Her eyes burned too, but not like Francis's had. They burned with fury. "Oh, no you couldn't be, not with the way you were snogging him!"

"No, you've got it all wrong," said Arthur with a nervous laugh. _Why am I laughing? _

"You were kissing _back,_" insisted Bella. "God—you know, I've had enough of you, you're just—so fucking dense and _I hate you!"_

_I hate you!_

She pushed past him back into the crowd, still laughing and singing.

_And there's a hand my trust friend!  
>And give us a hand o' thine!<br>And we'll take a right good-will draught  
>for auld lang syne<em>

_For auld lang syne, my dear  
>for auld lang syne,<br>we'll take a cup of kindness yet  
>for auld lang syne<em>

.

**author's note**

Wow I have not updated in FOREVER and oh my gosh I am so sorry and thank you all so much for being so patient with me and not sending me hate mail and the like ahhhh. /deepbreath

For those of you who don't ship FrUK, I'm sorry, but there are other England pairings (namelyUSUK) coming so you can something to look forward to :3

annnnnnd I'm out because I have to go to an orchestra concert but I hope you liked it and you can definitely look forward to more; this baby isn't ending anytime soon, whelp


	14. the faint cracks in their conscience

_14. the faint cracks in their conscience_

_**No new messages.**_

"Hey, Artie, put your phone away and let's go eat already," said Gilbert, bursting through the dorm door. His hair was slightly damp, like he'd just taken a shower. Actually he had taken a shower.

Arthur glanced one more time at the screen of his mobile and sighed. "All right," he conceded, and got up to follow his dorm-mate to the cafeteria.

"So what's got you down? You haven't really been yourself since New Year's," said the German, pulling his hat farther down around his ears. They walked quickly across the still-frosty ground and Arthur was glad for his own hat to protect his ears from the biting wind.

"Nothing, I'm fine," he replied absentmindedly. He settled vaguely on the fact that he'd really been neglecting his guitar a bit and _those strings were honestly about to go…_

Gilbert studied him carefully all through the dinner queue and it was when they'd sat down with Mathias and Francis that he finally said "Bella."

"No," said Arthur a bit too quickly, but the others didn't seem to buy it. Well, Mathias and Gilbert anyway, Francis was fiddling with a camera, his own plate of food untouched.

"We're not stupid, lad," said Mathias. "You two used to talk a lot, and now you don't even make eye contact."

"Something happen?" asked Gilbert, reaching a fork across the table to scoop up some of Francis's potatoes. The French boy didn't seem to notice.

Arthur set his jaw. He wasn't exactly keen to tell either Mathias or Gilbert what had happened in that cold night of New Year's, mostly because he didn't want to see their reactions. And the fact that the same reason why Bella wasn't talking to him was sitting less than a metre from him.

"Nothing happened," he said shortly, standing up. "You know, you can have my potatoes, Gil, I'm not particularly hungry."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see his bandmates exchange looks. He ignored them, and set off towards the dorms. Not Eckland, but a dorm all the same. A place where no one would be obnoxious and nosy and awful… As he neared the dorm, he was starting to regret leaving his dinner with Gilbert, although surely his own destination would have food, considering the inhabitant of the room…

He reached the Cooper Residence Hall and climbed several flights of the stairs before arriving at a door and knocking smartly on it. (*)

The door opened, and Alfred grinned around the heavy door. "Hey!" he said. "Didn't expect you to show up."

Arthur couldn't help but return the smile. "Yeah, I wasn't really in the mood for cafeteria food. Did you get take-away?"

"Take-away?" Alfred scrunched up his nose. "You mean like takeout?"

"Whatever. I'm starving and I need food." Arthur crossed his arms. "Come on, let me in."

"All right, calm yo tits." Alfred opened the door wider to let the Brit in. "I got Chinese; you like fried rice?"

"I do," said Arthur, sitting down on the couch. "Have you got any sauce?"

"Like soy sauce?" Alfred tossed him several packets. "Here you go."

Arthur caught them, and then reached for a carton. Alfred was already stuffing himself with dumplings and spicy General Tso's chicken. They ate for a bit, and it wasn't until Arthur had finished his food that he noticed Alfred studying him closely.

"What?" demanded Arthur.

Alfred squinted slightly, like he was trying to focus on some interesting detail. Arthur immediately felt self-conscious.

"What is it?" he demanded again.

The American swallowed another mouthful of spicy noodles and said, "Are you okay?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" grumbled Arthur half to himself.

"Well, no offense, man," said Alfred, "but you're a bit easy to read."

"What?"

"Are you always so surprised at everything I tell you?" asked Alfred, slightly bemused.

"Shut up," said Arthur.

"Don't want to talk about it?" Alfred shrugged, leaned back, and turned on the TV.

"No, not really—" Arthur hesitated, but then the words tumbled out of his mouth without his thinking about it.

"On New Year's they took us downtown into London to see the fireworks off the Big Ben. And you know you're supposed to kiss someone right at midnight, right? Well, I don't really… I don't really know how it happened but—Francis came up, bloody frog, and well"—Arthur swallowed hard—"he kissed me at midnight. And then Bella saw. And I don't really know why but she's really, really mad at me and won't text me back and won't return my calls and won't talk to me at all."

He stopped to breathe a bit (he'd sort of started hyperventilating… rather embarrassing) while he carefully watched Alfred for any reaction to the story.

But Alfred simply nodded his head wisely and looked at Arthur quite intently. "Don't you think," he said slowly, "that she's sort of overreacting a little bit? I mean, you weren't really going out properly in the first place, so why would she be so upset?"

Arthur sighed with relief, glad to hear his own concerns expressed in someone else's voice. "I don't know why she's acting like this either," he confessed, "but I don't want to lose her."

"Ohhhhhh I see how it is," teased Alfred with a knowing grin. He flipped the channel to a re-run of Doctor Who and leaned forward. "Oh, I love this show!"

"Shut up." Arthur made a face. "It's not like that; we're only friends."

"Okay. But don't lie to me, I saw you two holding hands last term." Alfred let out a monstrous burp. "It was awfully cute."

"It wasn't like that!"

"Okay, okay, calm yo tits." Alfred grinned at his friend. "But seriously. Have you considered talking to her face-to-face? Chicks like that kind of thing, and with that face, she wouldn't be mad at you anymore. Couldn't."

"Bollocks," cursed Arthur. "I'd rather not."

"All right," said the American, shrugging. "Have it your way."

They watched a few more minutes of _Doctor Who _while Arthur sulked.

"Oh, fuck this," he burst out finally. "I'm going."

Alfred grinned. "Good boy. I knew you were gonna cave."

Arthur, already standing at the door, froze and looked back. "What is _wrong _with you?"

Alfred raised his hands in a "don't blame me" gesture. The Brit groaned and left Alfred there, waving and laughing at his _Doctor Who._

He headed towards Bella's dorm. It was actually in the same building, quite convenient when they used to walk down together to lunch like they did so often before the holidays. That's how he seemed to define everything now: before the holidays and after. Not that it really did anything except make him more worried. He hardly ever saw her anymore anyway, because she always managed to time everything well enough to ensure their never meeting in the lobby or stairwell alone.

And that was, well, a good idea. Very good, now that as Arthur stepped on the landing. Just when Bella was coming out of her dorm.

Arthur couldn't see her face, she was looking down at her phone, maybe deleting his texts or answering someone else's, he didn't know. Her blond hair had fallen forward, her shoulders were hunched up, and somehow she looked really beautiful, very soft and beautiful. He was struck by an urge to reach out and touch her face, to take her face in his hands and tell her how bloody sorry he was, because even now the remorse writhed in his chest—_why did any of it happen, why didn't none of it happen…_

"Oh. Arthur."

He'd been so dumbfounded that he hadn't realised that she'd noticed him. He raised his eyes to her face and saw its composed calm, the stoic mask that hid suppressed anger, anger that was leaking out of her green eyes and flooding the space in between them. It was suffocating. Suffocating him so that he couldn't think; there was just the anger and that was everything—

"What are you doing here?"

Arthur's vision seemed to sway a little bit. He didn't know why, but he blinked a few times before speaking.

"I think you know the answer to that."

She crossed her arms and cocked her head. Her hair swished around her face. It was curly today, rather than wavy. Arthur ground his teeth and strained himself to focus on the words coming out of her mouth—"As a matter of fact, I really don't. There isn't any reason for me to be talking to you right now."

"Yes, there is," said Arthur a little forcefully.

Something in her face hardened and she began to walk towards the stairs. "Good-bye, Arthur," she nearly spat out.

"No, no," Arthur chased after her and grabbed her wrist, mostly of exasperation. "Bella—"

"Don't!" she shrieked, and she threw his hand off. "Don't—bloody—touch me!"

"How else am I supposed to get your attention?" said Arthur angrily. 'You don't return my calls, you don't text me, you avoid me in the halls—what am I supposed to do?"

"Get over it!" said Bella, trying to match his tone, but ultimately failing; her voice wavered. "Just accept that you don't give a fuck about my feelings and go away!"

The floor tilted and he almost barked out a laugh; what she'd said was so wrong and untrue that it didn't—it just didn't _work. _It was so against his nature that he wanted to scream immediately that it wasn't and tell her off but he couldn't risk that.

"I do give a fuck, Bella," he said, struggling to keep his voice even. "I _do _give a fuck because I care, I'm trying to care, but you won't—you won't _let _me!"

"Ohhhh," said Bella in a mocking voice. "Is it _my _fault now? Is that what you're saying?"

"I didn't do anything!" Arthur said desperately. "It was the bloody frog who kissed me anyway; I had nothing to do with it!"

"Yeah," she snorted, the word like a knife in Arthur's side, "but you kissed him _back._"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!" she insisted. "Like it or not you have feelings for—for Francis!"

"No, I don't!" he yelled back. But the words, even then, coming out of his mouth, felt not heavy but wrong all the same. She smiled in satisfaction, without warmth.

"You see then?" she said without humour. "You shouldn't lie to yourself. It's true."

Arthur swallowed. "Then disregarding that… can't we at least be—you know, friends?" he asked rather sadly; the answer was already burrowing a hole in his stomach, but he had to hear it, just to make sure.

Bella shook her head. "You've got to be kidding me."

She walked away, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the metal steps.

.

It was during another long, soporific lecture over the air raids and the Blitz that Arthur's phone vibrated with a text. The timing was uncanny. Arthur had been nodding off while next to him Gilbert doodled horrible pictures of strange (yet vaguely familiar) robots with arms that looked like a plunger and a whisk and single eyes on a metal stalk protruding straight out from the robots' fronts. He'd been watching Gil draw speech bubbles labelled "EXTERMINATE" over them for the last five minutes. Last few minutes? Time seemed to move far slowly than it did normally when you were using up energy trying to keep your eyes open. And the robots were definitely more interesting than the strategies the British used to counter Nazi Germany in the Second World War; they (the robots, not the British) were running around chasing an eyebrow-less man with a bowtie and funny hair…

But he couldn't exactly ignore the buzzing in his pocket (in his butt pocket, to be exact). Lucky that day it was abnormally hot—but English weather was always abnormal—and the air conditioning was a loud rickety thing. Perfect cover, thought Arthur, and he slid down slightly in his seat to see what message he'd received. Maybe it was from Bella.

**Jager van Vliet: **WHAT DID YOU DO TO BELLS

Arthur's heart sank. He started to type back a biting reply when he looked up into the suddenly glowering face of—okay, he could never pronounce, let alone spell his history teacher's name, since it was long and complicated and Indian but he really, really disliked her all the same. Everyone in her class did.

"Detention, Mr. Kirkland!" she trilled, with a slight trace of an Indian accent. "Saturday night, six o'clock. My office."

The verdict hit Arthur like a rock. He had a show that night and Ms.—whatever her name was—was fairly known for keeping her students for an unbearably long time. There was no way he was going to make it. Even now Gilbert was giving him a "You've got to be fucking kidding me" look.

"But—" Arthur heard the word slip out of his mouth without his brain having any input.

"No buts, Mr. Kirkland!" she said, raising an eyebrow. "You know, the consequences of having your phone in lessons. And this"—she wiggled his mobile—"you can have back at the end of the period."

She turned and marched back to the front.

Gilbert scribbled something on a scrap of paper and shoved it off his desk, towards Arthur. Arthur picked it up squinted. Gilbert's handwriting was awful.

_Good job. Now what._

Arthur bit his lip. The situation was quite delicate, since the place they were playing at was a pub they hadn't played at before. If they broke their contract now, then they'd be robbed of the opportunity to ever play there again. He couldn't let Gilbert play guitar even if it was necessary for some of the songs, since Gil only knew a handful of chords, none of which were used in the songs. He could always ask Jager to cover for him but seeing how the Dutchman was angry at him for what happened with Bella, he doubted Jager would be willing to do anything for him. Antonio, yes, was very good with classical guitar but that was rather hard to translate to electric, it really was, the textures were so different. Unless if Antonio was a quick learner? Or maybe he'd already tried electric, you never knew, honestly. Arthur chewed nervously on the tip of his pen. Maybe he could just have Elizaveta set up her keyboard or something? …

The bell rang, and everyone jumped up to rush to the dining hall for lunch. Arthur retrieved his phone and caught up to Gilbert.

"I think I've got it," he panted. "So if Tony can do it, I think he's good enough at acoustic to play electric…"

"Sure," said Gilbert, and Arthur, relieved, let go of Gilbert's shoulder. "Where are you going?"

"Library," yelled the Brit over his shoulder. "I've got to figure out those trig identities before the quiz today!"

"No, Artie—wait!"

"What?"

And Gilbert said breathlessly, "Francis wants to talk to you."

Arthur froze. He was instantly knocked over by a group of twelfth-years trying to get a good place in the queue. "_What?_"

"Francis wants to—"

"No I got that part!" snapped Arthur. "But—why?"

Gilbert gave him a look that Arthur thought was supposed to mean something but made no sense to Arthur.

"What?" repeated Arthur.

Gilbert put his palm to his face. "Blimey, I didn't think you were _this _bloody thick!"

"_What?_"

"Stop saying that so much!"

"Then explain it to me!"

The German stared at him for once incredulous second and then muttered something like "useless git." Arthur frowned.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

Gilbert looked at him. "The poor bloke _fancies _you!"

And shaking his head, Gilbert turned into the crowd of students, disappearing and leaving Arthur feeling like he'd been hit very hard over the head with a frying pan.

.

Arthur managed to put the bit of information out of his head for several weeks. He managed to keep The Frog (as he now called it) out of his head in the moments where no one spoke and his thoughts ran freely into places forbidden by his conscience. There was no use in trying to act like The Frog wasn't there, not without his friends being the same as Arthur's, and Gilbert, of course, flashing Arthur extremely annoying looks that, as always, seemed to mean something. Those he ignored as much as possible.

It wasn't easy. He still had to deal with Francis in art class, where the assignments were getting more and more time-consuming, forcing Arthur to spend more hours in the art rooms working on whatever project had been set to them. And time in the art room meant time talking to Francis. And while things in between them (or on Arthur's part anyway) were fairly civil, Arthur couldn't escape the nagging sensation that Francis "wanted to talk to him."

That bothered him more than anything. He found himself wondering at night what exactly Francis would want to say. To be honest, Arthur had never seen a particularly wordy side to The Frog. (There was a side where the French boy would give a coy look and smile mysteriously. That infuriated him to no end, but it wasn't as if Arthur would ever admit it to anyone.) But he wasn't exactly like Alfred or Gilbert either, both of whom often kept up a continuous upbeat chatter about nothing. Francis wasn't quiet, though. He just—when he talked, he was mysterious. That was really the only word to describe him that Arthur could think of. He didn't even know that much about Francis at all, even if The Frog lived in the next room. Perhaps it was the fact that Arthur never bothered to go in there. But since there was no reason to, why bother?

January turned into February, and the weather somehow began to grow colder than before (that was the awful bit about English weather) and a lot of students in their year had taken to staying indoors, especially since GCSE exams loomed over them in the passing weeks. Their teachers were assigning harder coursework and tests than ever. And then of course, there was the madness called Valentine's Day.

Arthur had, honestly, never really cared for Valentine's Day. Last year's had been uneventful, save for him having to sleep in Tino and Berwald's room so he wouldn't have to watch Gilbert and Elizaveta snog. It wasn't like he got any sleep that night, either.

Plus, this year he had the problem of Bella looking in the other direction whenever she walked by him on campus. And it wasn't just her, either; other people were giving him dirty looks. Lizzie, for one. That was the most prominent one because she was with Gilbert and he was Gilbert's _roommate _of all things so it was constantly in his face. All the time.

"They'll get tired of it soon," said Mathias cheerfully one day at band practice. "I mean, how much other gossip about you are they going to get?"

"Hm… none, I suppose," said Arthur absently. He "I mean, it's not like anyone else will fancy me."

"True," snorted Mathias, adjusting his hi-hats.

Gilbert set his jaw and put down his guitar. "Be right back; I gotta take a slash."

He left.

Arthur watched him leave, and then said "What's with him?"

The drummer spun his drumstick thoughtfully. "Well, I reckon he's just worried for his friend. And he's insanely loyal. Like a puppy. An albino puppy."

"I sort of noticed that," said Arthur, thinking back to the first night Gilbert had invited Tony and Francis to study in their dorm.

Mathias was quiet another moment. "You know, I reckon Gilbert would actually get along well with that yank if he wasn't so loyal…" he said, half to himself.

"What?"

The Dane made a panicked face, then slapped his palm to his mouth. "Dammit, I said too much."

"_Sorry?_"

"No, nothing. Never mind."

Arthur tried to forget what Mathias said, but couldn't. On Valentine's day, he did.

The day had been nondescript. It was a Saturday. He'd studied, he'd played chord progressions mindlessly while watching TV (G, D, E minor, C, D seventh), he'd wrote some fragments of song, he'd painted and ate scones and napped. Then Dylan talked him into a round of Call of Duty, and it turned into a suite-wide sort of thing.

Then, when Gilbert had left to go off-campus with Elizaveta and Arthur had retreated into his room to study for his biology exam (it wasn't really working, he kept playing guitar instead. A major, E major, F-sharp major, D major), he heard a soft knocking on the door.

"Coming," called Arthur, spinning around in his chair and putting his guitar flat on its back on the bed, then opened the door.

Francis.

"Can I have a word?" he asked, surprising Arthur because Christ, how was he so polite? It made him even worse to hate. There was already a sort of cold unsteadiness inside him, shaking of _something _he couldn't have known what it was, not then…

"Yeah, sure," he said numbly and they sat down.

The words that came out of Francis's mouth felt as shaky as Arthur was, uncertain and earnest and kind and bloody terrified. Arthur swallowed to clear his head, and then heard very clearly "I do… like you. That way."

It didn't feel like he felt like anything. He was floating between emotions, conscious that maybe he was supposed to feel something… elation? Flattery? Disgust? No, no… no, how exactly was he supposed to feel? He swallowed again, but his mouth was dry; there was nothing to swallow except sawdust. Maybe that was what disappointment tasted like? No—but why would he feel disappointed? Francis did like him, just like Gilbert said! And his heart sped up and he felt dizzy, still floating and wondering how to feel.

"A—Arthur?"

He forced himself to look at Francis again, blue eyes and dark blond hair and earnest face. "No, this…" Arthur felt the words come out of his mouth. "No, Germany was so long ago." And as soon as he said it he could see the green trees and sunshine and taste the wurst and hear the laughter but that was all so, so long ago, painfully so, hazy and distant and nothing but dreams.

"This isn't about Germany," said Francis. Arthur had nothing to say, his throat had nothing to say, and he didn't know what to say.

Francis looked on, dark blue eyes flickering with a hint of knowing, a hint of emotion or something that Arthur didn't honestly understand, but there was nothing that he could say, truly, without feeling right with himself, except…

"I can't."

Francis blinked twice, quickly, and then slowly.

"I don't think," said Arthur carefully, "that I can… do this. I just…" His voice wavered. "I can't. It's just—I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't—I don't feel the same way."

He paused slightly, to look at Francis, who had no expression on his face.

"I'm—" Arthur took in a deep breath. "I'm going to have to ask you to hide your feelings. I'm—God, I'm sorry—"

Francis put a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "No, I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Arthur opened his mouth to say something but Francis had already stood up and left.

The door in the next room closed gently.

.

The Frog spent Easter in France with his mother that year. And he carefully avoided Arthur's gaze for the next few months after that, after that somehow quietly earthshaking day. In contrast Gilbert shot glares at him for a week, then quickly returned to normal. Alfred was somehow even more understanding than ever about the whole thing, despite Arthur feeling guilty about telling him about it (he wasn't sure why; he didn't have much of a reason to feel that way at all) and became an even more valuable friend to Arthur.

In any case, he forgot about it anyway, once GCSEs arrived. There was a generally greater amount of chaos than really any other week or in any of the other years except for the one taking A-levels. But there were more people in GCSE year, and more stupid people in GCSE year. The resounding majority of the eleventh years spent their time cramming for fear of failure, and they'd taken to extreme eating and sleeping schedules ("Not any more extreme than they had been already," remarked Arthur drily). The video-game tournaments often held within their suite every week or so had been abandoned in favour of frantically scouring the textbooks for every last detail and scrap of information that might show up on the exam. Everyone went to bed at the earliest of an hour with a single digit, and much time in class was spent reviewing. Arthur's head might have exploded if not for his guitar, though sometimes he wrote stupid songs as pneumonic devices that Gilbert hummed under his breath while diligently studying from his barely-used literature textbook.

Some idiots started a contest of sorts onto who could study better, making bets on who would score better on the exams, of which Arthur and Gilbert would make fun of for about five seconds, then go back to studying. But it was hard to concentrate while their bandmate tried to prove that an A was better than A*.

"Clearly he's taken something to make him go mental," muttered Gilbert darkly as he studied a diagram of the Krebs cycle.

"Or we all just need more sleep," said Arthur, yawning.

The Saturday morning before exam week, Arthur had it.

"Ughhhh asfhwsjfsihg owe fslhg uof s!" he groaned in frustration, and kicked his mathematics book off his bed.

Gilbert looked up. "That was like a mix of cats being run over by lawnmowers and a cow being castrated by a butter knife."

"Lovely description," said Arthur drily.

"Thank you."

"But I've HAD IT," said Arthur.

Gil stared as Arthur stood up.

"FUCK THIS!" he bellowed at his dormmate. "I've had two weeks straight without making any real fucking legitimate music."

Arthur pointed at Gilbert.

"Get your clothes on. We're going to Jager's."

the German looked bewildered. "But I thought Jager hated you?"

"He's over the whole thing; Bella's just being a self-righteous bitch. Hurry up!"

Gilbert shook his head and put on a t-shirt and pants over his boxers. "Why are we going, now?"

The Brit looked at him dead in the eye. "Bring your bass. We're making a demo."  
>.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>author's note.<strong>

Wow I update really slowly ;A; again, thank you everyone for being so patient and supportive and lovely; I really owe it to you all that this story even exists (heart) I'm sorry that the writing's just slowly declining… ahhhh Also I get the feeling that Bella (because she's English in this story, everyone is) would be from Oxford. I just hear an Oxford accent in my head when she's talking that is alll…..

* I should clarify some things about their dorms. The dorms aren't set up in the traditional hall style that you would imagine, but rather, they're suite-like apartment dorms. The dorm will have a sort of small common room, with a bathroom and several bedrooms, two to a room. And since it's a private school, let's go ahead and throw in a mini-kitchen in there too. The building has two of these apartment-like dorms per floor, one boys' dorm and a girls' dorm. The doors are locked and can only be opened by a pass/id card sort of thing that is issued to all students at the start of the term (hence keeping the boys out of the girls' dorms and vice versa). Of course, the people inside can let people in if they want, etc. It's not generally allowed, but most people break this rule and most teachers honestly don't enforce it, as long as they're all the same sex. Of course not everyone let in the dorms is of the same sex haha :) But anyway, hopefully this gives you a better idea of the dorms and stuff like that! :D

* and lastly, I do realise that I am dragging this story out a ridiculous amount but you know that's part of it ok so I hope you understand


	15. a couple updates

Doesn't everyone hate getting this message? Hahaha.

I realize it's been _months and months _since I've even thought about this story so I think you can officially give up hope of me officially continuing it here on fanfiction dot net.

GOOD NEWS ENSUES!

I'm going to start from scratch. My writing style has (I think) changed a lot and the way these characters have spoken to me almost doesn't seem like it conforms to the Hetalia canon anymore. I am going to start writing it like they are my own characters, because I've spoken with them for so long that they seem like mine and they speak like mine.

It won't be here on fanfiction dot net. It'll be on tumblr. It won't be in chapters. It'll be in short drabbles, which I will probably update every 1-2 days. Much better than waiting for months, right? Ha.

The blog is steel-strings . tumblr . com. Cheers! x


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